In need of help!

Ok, I'm in a bad spot now. I figured I would have my rear leafs in and done by the end of the day, but with my luck something always goes wrong.

I was worried about snapping a bolt, but I would have never imagined how bad of a problem I would face with the last bolt. It is the front leaf bolt on the driver side. Now most of you should know that there is no whole in the frame for the back side of the bolt. I'm guessing it was just a nut that is welded in there. Well, I put a BUNCH of PB on it at different times throughout the day but it would not get any easier. So I just started wrenching on it. Well it had multiple cracking noise a that bolts have sometimes while breaking loose and it kept doing it. So I thought that it would be fine since it kept going. Then all of the sudden a loud snap. When I go to look at it though, the bolt did not break. For some reason the eye of the leaf (the broken one so all that is there is just the bushing right now) did not let the bolt keep coming out and must of broke the welds on the nut inside of the frame.

So now I'm guessing I will have to cut open the "frame" and use a wrench on the bolt that is in there and then figure something out from there.

Anyone else had to deal with such a thing?

This really sucks cause now I will have no vehicle for as long as it takes me to fix it, and I have work and school that I need to be going to...

This happened to me the day of a big wheeling trip. I feel your pain, trust me, same side too.

The bolt inside the frame has probably come loose off the frame. Its only hald on by a couple tacks. As far as I see it, you have 1 option. Cut the part of the frame where the bolt is out with a grinder to get at the nut. Even if you had a new bolt and tried to cut it out w/ a reciporcating saw, you would need to get the old harware out or find a way to re-use the same nut, but it will spin anyway.

In my situation, the bolt had been stripped and stuck in the sleeve of the bushing. We had to bend the metal housing out while one of us cut the bolt off. My buddu had the leaf spring past 90 degrees perpendicular of where it originally was. Then we took vice grips and bent the metal back so we could fit the new nut in, then put the bolt through the leaf spring bushing one in place. Make sure to cut the hole big enough to get the wrench up there while you tighten the nut.

Quite a process. You will most likey need 2 guys. The metal bent fine both ways, there was no damage in my case.

Good luck.

Not sure what your talkin about with the leaf being past perpindicular, but I think I know what I will do. After I do this I will probably sleeve my frame since cutting it will weaken it, and I planned on sleeving it anyways. Just hope I can get this thing done tomorrow.

I had the nut on my passengers side break free. Luckily I was at a guys shop and had access to a number of cutting and welding tools. We ended up torching off the leaf spring to get it out of the way, cut the bulge that holds the nut out with a grinder and a plasma cutter, welded a new nut on the backside, and welded the whole panel back in.

We had fought with the bolt for a while, so once we were sure it was broken off the rail we decided not to keep messing with it and went at it with the cutters. It ended up being pretty fast to just cut the whole area out.

Good luck!

I didn't realize the passenger side was suppose to be that way. Mine had a bolt and a non welded nut with a whole in the frame to get to the bolt since the nut was on the outside. That might explain why there is reinforcement panels welded in above that mount. Which also gives me a new idea. I will probably cut through the floor from the inside to get to the bolt, that way I wont hinder the strength of the fram and I can drive it to a shop to get it welded without worrying about it.

Search as this was covered plenty times with many different solutinos offered!!!! You're not the first guy that it happened to so don't reinvent the wheel.

What I did on my dad's rig: cut the leaf spring, cut the rubber, drop the leaf spring and make sure that there is enough of the bolt sticking out so that I could grab it with something. Drill the pocket towards the nut with a fair sized drill bit, pull on the bolt so that it brings the nut against the sheetmetal and then rosette weld the nut to the pocket. Use vice grips and a pipe wrench to remove the remainder of the bolt (3 turns out 2 turns in, 3 turns out 2 turns in while spraying). Clean up the surface from any extra weld with a grinder and put a new leaf pack in.

I tried searching but what I was typing in didn't turn up with anything good. I don't really have access to a welder, so I'll either stick with my last idea, or if someone can post some threads this problem and their fixes and maybe I'll find one I like better.

el_roy1985 said:

I tried searching but what I was typing in didn't turn up with anything good. I don't really have access to a welder, so I'll either stick with my last idea, or if someone can post some threads this problem and their fixes and maybe I'll find one I like better.

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whatever you do you will have to weld something: either weld the nut to the sheetmetal or weld the pocket shut... you can't just leave it open after cutting it open.

Kejtar said:

whatever you do you will have to weld something: either weld the nut to the sheetmetal or weld the pocket shut... you can't just leave it open after cutting it open.

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Why not? Mine is still open and so was a couple of friends? I don't think it is that important. Has anyone heard about issues on this if you leave it open?

Toyman said:

Why not? Mine is still open and so was a couple of friends? I don't think it is that important. Has anyone heard about issues on this if you leave it open?

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I havent herad of any issues, but the factory boxed it for a reason. The unibody is thin gauge metal so if its not boxed that leaf spring bolt is placing tremendous load on that thin piece of metal. Just my .02

only that you will get mud and water amnd crap in the hole that will rust out the rails

I cut it open today and it was already full of crap, so I don't think that's the reason for having it closed up. I should get my spring put on tomorrow finally.

One more question though.... I have the Rusty 6" leaf packs and on the site it says one of the leafs can be removed for a softer ride if you don't have a whole bunch of heavy stuff holding the back down. Would this be the smallest leaf, or the second smallest. I removed the smallest one on the passenger side assuming that would be the one.

Thanks, Jason

CMNCHE said:

I havent herad of any issues, but the factory boxed it for a reason. The unibody is thin gauge metal so if its not boxed that leaf spring bolt is placing tremendous load on that thin piece of metal. Just my .02

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x2 I've killed a set of bushings in 2 years of wheeling, so if you take into account the amount of stress that you put on those when you figure that it's an unsuported nut at that point you'll rip something off.....