So...... I started this weekend with the thought of possibly getting the vette on the road. Yeah that's not happening now. I planned to do the simple things first such as front sway bar install and new extended studs in the rear.
I started with the extended studs because I wanted to mount my fat ass wheels with sapcers and see how pretty she looks. The moment I took off the brake disc I realized this may be bad. I've never ever taken a look longer then 2 seconds at drum brakes or my rears on the vette before today.
The problem is the corvette has a drum ebrake that sits behind the hub preventing me from knocking out studs or installing new ones. Well there was enough space in places so buy rotating the hub I had enough back space that i felt comfortable hammering away at the stud. Holy crap!!!! the studs were in there good. Someone must have torqued the wheels to some ridiculous amount at some point. I managed to knock out one with a sledge hammer but that was no easy task and I really didn't want to do it again as everything is taking the impact and the car was shaking pretty good even with the frame on stands. Shitty part is that there wasn't enough space for the stud to slip out from between the drum and hub.
OK, time to remove the hub. Run to Crappy tire, grab a 36mm socket, remove big f'n nut and it comes right off. Not the case as GM puts 3 massive torx bolts behind the hub holding everything together. I go on the net to find out that i have to remove the entire half shaft just to make space to undo the bolts. FML, this sucks, I take a nap.
I start taking apart the rusted half shaft telling my self how much this sucks, I want to meet the genius that decided to put the bolts on the back and possibly kill him, and so on..... Then i stop half way and determine that i will remove the three bolts without removing the shaft which happened. With the help of different extensions in combination with more different extensions all different for each bolt and in-between all the suspension arms, I was finally able to remove the hub. Pic of hub off and the drum brake remaining.
But now its time to get those pesky studs out. After trying the sledge hammer with a socket to no avail I decided to stop monkeying around and use a vice. I still couldn't pop them but the "just a little more" mentality was saying "just a little bit more torque should do it". A 15mm socket, a short extension and placed on the end of the vices' handle should suffice. 20deg of rotation later and this is what happens.....
... I'll stop there but still have all these items to install
