leaf spring bolt rusted,..

I am looking for some options after trying to remove the front leaf bushing bolt and haveing the welded nut on the inside of the "frame-rail" break off. -After trying all evening,I have finally hacked my way though the rear floorpan down into the area behind the rusted-off portion and tommorow will attempt again to retract the leaf spring bolt by clamping that rusted nut with something ,I don't know what at this point -I guess my question is,with all the metal I've removed in my haste to get at this rusted nut will it be okay to just run another longer leaf-spring bolt though the bushing and frame to the inside "frame" with maybe a lock-nut , to this novice mechanic this area around where the leaf spring mounts attach to the unibody looks structully critical and might demand/require another different process to return it to some reasonable structual integrity-Any thoughts/commentary
TIA

Dude, Im in the EXACT same boat as you.... Except, I have not gotten the balls up yet to cut a whole in the floor to get the damn bolt out.

Let me know how it all works out and GOOD LUCK....I know your pain.

TOEHEAD

I just finished dealing with this. If you look closely, there is a pocket of metal that sits outside the frame rail, this is where the nut is welded. It's easy to see with the leaf spring removed. I cut a square out of the bottom of this pocket, bought a new nut, welded the new nut to an 1/8" square piece of metal with a 9/16" hole I drilled in it, then put that square up in that pocket, bolted it up, and welded it up. It's not necessary to cut the floorboard.

xj92 said:

I just finished dealing with this. If you look closely, there is a pocket of metal that sits outside the frame rail, this is where the nut is welded. It's easy to see with the leaf spring removed. I cut a square out of the bottom of this pocket, bought a new nut, welded the new nut to an 1/8" square piece of metal with a 9/16" hole I drilled in it, then put that square up in that pocket, bolted it up, and welded it up. It's not necessary to cut the floorboard.

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Just went through this also and did almost exactly the same thing as xj92. No need to go through the floorboard. I used a dremel to do the cut into the metal pocket and smeared everything that went back on with gobs of anti-sieze because I don't want to go through that hell again!