Crossmember bolts.

Ok so, I just put a TNT crossmem on my jeep and then beat it pretty hard. one of the nuts in the frame rail stripped out and the bolt wont go in(obviously). I was thinking of drilling it out and running a tap the next size bigger. Any other ideas? any was to protect those bolts?

you can drill and tap larger but it will have less meat on the nut making it more likely to deform/stretch

the "correct" fix which is also really hard to do is to cut a flap in the side of the frame rail, replace the weldnut, and weld the flap back in place

I'd do somewhat of a cop-out, punch the old weldnut out, then weld a new nut (preferably of a larger size, might as well upgrade while you are at it) to a fender washer of the appropriate size and a piece of 1/8" or 3/16" steel rod. Spraybomb the whole thing, then bend the steel rod into a shape that lets you snake it into the frame from an access hole further down the rail. Might take a bit of finagling but it should work, and if you do it right, you should be able to retrieve it easily at a later point in time if you have to do it all over.

cjsxj87 said:

Ok so, I just put a TNT crossmem on my jeep and then beat it pretty hard. one of the nuts in the frame rail stripped out and the bolt wont go in(obviously). I was thinking of drilling it out and running a tap the next size bigger. Any other ideas? any was to protect those bolts?

Click to expand...

I drilled and tapped those in the XJ 6 years ago. No problems with them so far.