Unsticking the Stuck, Part 2 (of 2!)

Today, Master Electrician Bob Zimmerman came to do some work at both my house and at the Grant St. Garage. When you see pictures in the shop, with the huge bank of 6-bulb florescent fixtures and quad outlets every four feet, that's all Bob's work. He started over at the electric meter, and rewired the whole place. Bob's dad, John Zimmerman, came along to supervise and help think. Turns out that was helpful in the end too.

See, I got the bright idea to text Bob:
"Do you have a MIG welder?"
Bob: "120 Volt"
Me: "Bring it!"

Last November, I posted Part 1, where I told of a seriously stuck bolt on my passenger side half-shaft that had defeated both me and BMW guru Jack Miller in our attempts to loosen it. I used my lathe and mill to create this, made from the head of a big 24 mm bolt (part of a deceased spring compressor):

The idea was to drill that center hole to fit the remains of the bolt on the differential, weld it, and then turn the bolt out with a 24mm wrench. All good, except when I went to fit it, there wasn't clearance to do that! So, I milled a slot to weld it in from the side, the idea being to weld it, break the bolt loose, then cut the extra bit off and turn the bolt out. It fit like this:

When Bob tried to turn it, of course the whole half-shaft rotated - the handbrake didn't have nearly enough resistance to counteract that torque. I tried putting the transmission in gear, but that didn't help, since the trans was on the workbench at the time. So, I came up with this - a wheel alignment tool coupled with a carefully cut wooden "leg":

OK, that gave enough resistance to torque that it allowed us to twist my little bolt-head right off! I ground off the weld and Bob tried again to weld it tight. Same result.

Round 3: I designed another method - the shaft of that big bolt, with two nuts locked on the top. I used my lathe to drill a hole down the center, and then milled a slot for weld penetration. That seemed more promising:

Same result. We twisted it off, but we decided that there were two problems: it was too long, and we didn't get it welded quite straight. Round 4, I moved the nuts to the other end, and cut off the end and drilled and milled for another try:

This was more promising. It held tight, but now there was a new problem. The entire shaft was rotating and lifting the weight of the car against the "leg" that was supposed to stop it from rotating. I started figuring out a fixture that I could attach with lug bolts to stop that, and that's when John did his part (thinking): "Doesn't this car have brakes?"

Right. I climbed up into the driver's seat, and pressed the brake as hard as I could. Bob tugged again, and it finally yielded! After breaking free, the bolt came out easily. Success!  I'm going to keep this as a trophy:

Getting this out was important, because now I can unhook everything else, remove the differential, and rebuilt the limited slip clutches. I may also have a specialist reset the shims to try to remove 197,000 miles of wear, to get rid of some slack. 

I have been worrying about that bolt since last July, when I replaced the shocks and springs and realized it was stuck. What a relief... thanks, Bob and John!