Crossmember woes

Assuming a transfer case drop would be a piece of cake, I ordered one, only to find out that some idiot broke one of the stock bolts off that hold the crossmember up. To make matters worse, he drilled another hole in my crossmember (about 1" toward the center of the crossmember) and welded a piece of metal off the body to put a different bolt in. Anyway, now the Tcase drop I got from Rusty's will not fit w/ this altered crossmember setup. Any suggestions? Would it be better to find someone to drill the broken bolt out and re-tap it or should I just take it somewhere and have the 1" Tcase drop welded between the crossmember and the body? Would that even work? I gotta get rid of these vibes. Thanks, K9Cop

I wouldn't think that you would want to weld the drop kit in or someone might be calling you the idiot if they ever need to drop the tranny or decide to just go with a SYE. I heard that there are accesses points in the passenger compartment above the bolt holes you are talking about. I can't say that I've seen them myself but if true, drilling out and dropping in another bolt would be easy. Try drilling and retapping it first though.

SeaMonkey said:

I heard that there are accesses points in the passenger compartment above the bolt holes you are talking about. I can't say that I've seen them myself but if true, drilling out and dropping in another bolt would be easy.

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Anyone know the mysterious answer?

SeaMonkey said:

Try drilling and retapping it first though.

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Who does stuff like this? I went to the local off-road garage/tire shop and they said they don't do stuff like that. Should an average mechanic know how or have the tools to do this? I wouldn't know where to begin in drilling and retapping.

Dilling and tapping is an easy do it yourself job. Just drill out the bolt with the smallest drill size that will get the bolt out, then go to sears or any good tool store and get a tap for the size hole you drilled out. If you don't have a tap set make sure you buy a tap handle with the tap. Makes it much easier than using a visegrip. Then you just screw the tap in using a in then out motion with lots of oil. Gee that remides me of something else! Ok back to what i was talking about here. I've heard of the welded nut in the frame breaking loose so that is why I mentioned the holes above the frame, just in case you need to drop a new nut or bolt down from the top. Sorry to hear that it didn't turn out to be a easy job to install your kit but on the bright side you'll know how to tap a hole when your done! =:{)

There are indead access holes directly above each of these bolts. They are under the carpet (duh!). There will be a little metal plug siliconed in to the floorboard. If you have a stick welder and are really savvy, you may be able to thread a nut onto the broken bolt (from the top) and slink the welding rod down into the center of it and weld the nut to the broken bolt. If you do this, be REAL careful not to catch your jeep on fire- alos be wary of the fuel lines running just a couple of inches away (on the other side of the "Frame". that or the drill out and retap are the onlt hings that come to mind. Good luck!

remove one of the original bolts and check the thread pitch/diameter. once you have the thread pitch and diameter, buy a tap and a MATCHING DRILL BIT for the tap (taps are indexed to specific size drill bits) once you do this, it's a matter of just drilling through the center of the broken bolt and then tap.

use some kind of lubricant (a light oil) while tapping, and for the whole process, go two turns in, one turn out, two turns in, one turn out, and so on until you've gone as far as you can go.

you need to remember that taps are brittle, and can EASILY break with side loads or if they bind. (removing a broken tap is about 100x harder than removing a broken bolt)

something also to check, make sure there actually is a broken bolt in there and it's not just packed with dirt/grease. if it's packed with dirt, it may have stripped, and then you'll have to drill and tap to a slightly bigger size