I think I recently had the same problem you are having. I was replacing my steering rack and had to disconnect the U-joint from the rack's pinion shaft. Took the bolt out, but that joint was frozen solid to the shaft. Because of the subframe and the rack and whatever else down there, there is little of a straight shot to driving the joint off the shaft from below. What I did was place a cold chisel, that was made from about 1/2" hex stock, into a deep socket of the same size, and with a bunch of extensions threaded through that maze at the rear of the engine (driver's side), came out of the front of the engine compartment, with the chisel end resting in the split where the U-joint sits on the shaft. I pounded the crap on the end of my extension arrangement with a brass sledge hammer. It tool a tremendous amount of pounding to break that joint free--I mushroomed that split in the joint a bit. One thing that made it hard for me is that I made the mistake of unbolting the rack from its subframe mounting before releasing the joint from the shaft. So when I was pounding everything was moving a bit.
Are you replacing your rack?
|