Broken seat bolt fix?

One of my seat brakcet bolts (bolts seat to unibody) was rusted and snapped in half with most of the bolt still threaded in. Any good ways to get it out without damaging the threads?

Soak in PB blaster, and remove it like a stud using a stud extractor, visegrips, or my personal favorite: the sockets for removing stripped/rounded nuts. If not enough of the bolt is showing, I've seen someone drill a hole in the center of a bolt and work it out with a screw extractor. If it turns into a hassle, just break the whole thing loose from the unibody and replace it with a nut and bolt with washers. Thats what I did for a few of mine when I bedlined the interior

Got access to a welder?

Take a large washer with a small hole and puddle weld the hole of the washer to the end of the broken bolt. Next weld a good sized nut to the washer and spin that bad boy off. Worked for me.

If all else fails, just drill it out and use a new bolt, washers nut.

Edit: I have no carpets in my jeep and its bedlined.. be careful if you still have your carpets:flame:

Which one was it? If it was the one that goes straight down at the back, and therefore hangs out the floorboards under the jeep, grab it with a pair of vice grips from below and essentially screw it in till it comes out the bottom, now that it has no head it should just go straight through. Not only that, the threaded portion above the floor has had the rust scraped off it so it should come out easier this way. Apply pb-blaster/aerokroil/wd-40/your favorite rust penetrant from both ends before starting.

kastein said:

Which one was it? If it was the one that goes straight down at the back, and therefore hangs out the floorboards under the jeep, grab it with a pair of vice grips from below and essentially screw it in till it comes out the bottom, now that it has no head it should just go straight through. Not only that, the threaded portion above the floor has had the rust scraped off it so it should come out easier this way. Apply pb-blaster/aerokroil/wd-40/your favorite rust penetrant from both ends before starting.

Click to expand...

It was the driver's seat, rear bolt closest to the door. I'll start hitting it with PB tonight and see if I can get the vise grips on it from the bottom tomorrow. Thanks fellas.

As careful as I was in removing the seat bracket to floor bolts (during my evaporator project) I managed to break one on each side. The easy fix was just to grind off the bolts with an angle grinder, then drill out the hole to accept grade-8 bolts/washers. I used anti-seize for the next time.

All of my pass side bolts had been cut flush off by the PO. Dis as above, lots of PB and a small EZ out, they all came out EZ'ly. All but one stick out the bottom so Kastiens advice is solid. Go underneath, check it out.

Make sure you drill straight thru the center of each bolt if you go that route.

Funny enough, I just did this repair, literally today. The factory bolts are about 1.25" long and M8x1.25 just a FYI. Anyway i broke the exact same bolt, drivers seat rear bolt that sticks out of the bottom of the jeep. After it broke i tried heat, pb blaster, oil of wintergreen ect and couldn't get it out(grabbing it from the underside of the truck and trying to screw it towards the ground. Anyway as for what i did to remove it...

Took a carbide burr on a straight die grinder and ground down what was sticking up on the interior down to flush with the floor. On the outside I also used the bur and then finished up with a 4" angle grinder to grind that flush. at that point what remained of the bolt literally fell out. I then drilled out the hole to about .400". After that I bought an M10x1.5 bolt, nut, and two wide washers. I installed the bolt from the BOTTOM, so the threads were sticking up on the inside of the truck. This will prevent the threads from rusting, and allow easy removal in the future. I put a washer under the head of the bolt as well as underneath the nut inside the truck. Worked like a champ, though I will say I am going to put some rtv around the the head of the bolt/washer, so as no water/salt ect gets inside the truck. since the repair is not as 'water tight' as it was before it broke.

The only bolt out of the 3 that are the same on the seats, that needs to be as long as it is, is the one that sticks outside of the truck. The ones on the front can literally be like 1/3 the length they are and still work fine, b/c it goes into the seat bracket then like 1/16" of metal, and then it just floats in space. :yelclap:

It'll still rust on the inside, fyi... unless water and wet feet never go in your jeep! I'd cover the entire length of the threads in rtv.

Only reason I can think of for the length of the bolt is that the carpet wasn't compressed yet when the bolt was installed at the factory, other than that no idea... I blame chrysler! Hasta