spring pack front bolt help

Ok I have a 97 XJ and I want to swap out the rear spring packs.
Every one is always afraid of that front bolt and the nut in the frame snapping.
So that is what I went after first. Got the drivers side lose and no problems.
Here is where the fun begins. I got the passenger side lose. But the sleeve is turning in side the bushing. It’s rusted to the bolt.
Here is my question.
How am I going to get this thing out of there now?
Thanks for any help

Run a search, most people doing a spring pack project have run into this problem.

Basically, cutting into the frame from the inside to get access to the bolt, or cutting into the frame from the top through a flap seem to be the most common solutions.

But definately run a search, because there is alot of information on this topic.

I posted this pic a few weeks ago on a thread about this problem. I had a lot of fun.

Forget cutting into the frame. You have the bolt free and turning without breaking the weld nut loose ... that's the good news.

Is there any excess space in the spring pocket in the frame? In other words, is the spring bushing tightly fitted on both the inside and the outside, or is there some "daylight"? If no clearance, you may have to bend the outer face of the spring pocket out a tad to create some.

Next question is, is there still some thread engaged with the weld nut inside the frame?

You'll need to soak the bushing and sleeve liberally with PB Blaster, probably squirting it on several times a day for a couple or three days. Then take a 9/16" (or 14mm if you can find 'em) washer or two, cut or grind one side to make them U-shaped, and tap them into the space between the end of the sleeve and the frame rail. For this to work, the bolt has to still be engaged in the threads. The idea is to set up a situation where the sleeve is being forced to slide along the bolt. Long, tapered pry bars might help, too. If you can once get it to start moving, keep adding PB Blaster and keep prying it back and forth until it loosens up. If the opposite side came apart, the rust shouldn't be too far progressed.

Worst case would have having to actually cut open the spring eye and demolish the bushing to get access to the sleeve, as described in the link above.

i did my 99 3 weeks ago, and had the same problem. i was sure the threads were out of the nut so i got a sawzall and just cut the bolt on both sides of the spring. a small tapered part was still in the hole but it came right out with a little tap from my hammer on the oppesite side of the frame rail. you have to get the bolts from the stealership they are about $5. it was not too much work i cut them out on sunday, not knowing at the time i could only get a bolt from a dealership. so it had to sit on jack stands for a night until i could get there in the morning. that was the only option we saw at the time to get the bolt out though. good luck.

Ok I like the cut washer idea.
The problem I was having is as I was taking the bolt out it was it was pulling the outer support out along with it. So there is no space between the sleeve and the outer frame support. It even dimpled the outer frame support some. So it’s really on there. This also leads me to believe that the nut in the inner frame is still welded onto the frame. I don’t like the fact that the outer frame support is dimpled out now but I can try and fix that some later.
My idea was to loosen the bolt up again and cut the bolt on the outer side then slide the spring over and cut the bolt on the inner side. Once the spring was out use some vice grips to get the rest of the bolt out of the nut in the frame. I think it should come right out then.
The sleeve is right up against the outer frame support and there is no room there but once I get the spring out I can take care of that.
I am not going to use these spring again so even if I have

Thayer said:

I posted this pic a few weeks ago on a thread about this problem. I had a lot of fun.

Click to expand...

I was trying to see a write up on how you got to this stage in the pic. But I did a search and could not come up with it.
Any links to it?

gixer said:

I was trying to see a write up on how you got to this stage in the pic. But I did a search and could not come up with it.
Any links to it?

Click to expand...

I pretty much had to cut everything in half to get the bolt out. This is what most of the posts suggest to do as a last resort. I found it pretty easy to do it with a cutoff wheel attacking it like this:



Cut through the leaf spring eye, the thin metal sleeve, and some of the rubber bushing if you want. This cut should separate the leaf from the eye, so you can rotate the eye to do the same cut 180* from the previous one. This should let you separate the eye and thin sleeve. I used a recip saw to cut the rubber bushing, trying to do it with a box cutter blade was really tiring. I tried separating the inner bushing that is seized to the bolt at the seam, but that was impossible even after widening the seam with a dremel tool. I ended up PB'ing through my dremel cuts and grabbing it with vice grips to hold it still while I twisted the bolt out.

Good thing the nut in the frame is still good. Sorry I didn't take step by step pics (half the time I'm clueless and don't know if what I'm doing is worth documenting).

Thanks every one for the help.
Now I have a few plans of attack