Quote Originally Posted by MSHardeman View Post
More to the saga....but good news this time.

Right after I called Merlin to get the hub nuts shipped to me, I went out and bought an impact driver. Tried it on the goofy little screws and NO LUCK. The impact driver only stripped them out more.

After a little cussing (OK, A LOT of cussing) and some tool throwing I grabbed the screw extractor and chucked it into my drill fully intending to just drill the heads off of the screws and just wait for the nuts to come in from Merlin. As I was drilling the first screw out (keep in mind that the extractor drills with the drill in reverse) the drill bit part of the extractor must have grabbed the screw enough and it backed right out!! WTF!? Must have been a fluke...NOPE, same thing on the second screw...and the third...and the...you get the idea. This same process even worked on the headless screw. Well-I'll-be-darn!

So, now is all right with the world and I have completely torn down the driver side and I am waiting for everything to dry off after degreasing and washing it so I can put it all back together.

I'm still going to let the hub nuts come as I'm sure it's always good to have a couple lying around.

Thanks to everyone for the input. First round in Moab is on me.

I just love our little "family".

Mark
If it comes down to the wire, consult you're local hardware dood...I replaced all the little (soft) hub screws with stainless, that were readily available from my local Ace Hardware.