rusty nutsert solution?

so I am in the midst of installing the TNT y-link upgrade, and their frame stiffiners.
well up here most things rust, and I had to cut the captured bolt holding the x-member up, and one of the nutserts have spun free. plus the 2 front most I have to tap anyway, but its all dirt, and rust in there right now so this is my idea to replace/fix the problem.

bolt the new x-member using new nuts/bolts thru a piece of flat stock, and weld these nuts to the flat stock so they match up with the slots on the x-member/stiffiners . then weld the new plate onto the frame stiffiners.
cut out the piece of frame rail the has the nutserts in it, the same size as the piece of flat stock. and install the frame stiffiners just the way they are meant to.

I didn't have any pieces of steel around, so wood will stand in for the mock up.

flat stock with new nuts welded in place


then new piece welded onto stiffiners, which would be installed as per directions.


see any problems with this idea?

So, you want to cut a big rectangular hole in the bottom of the uni-rail to allow clearance for the metal nutstrip you made? That seems like it would work okay, measure twice, cut once, don't remove any more metal than necessary. Prime it up really well before enclosing it forever.

well the other option.
instead of the piece of flat stock, I could use smaller pieces over each slot.
same idea but small pieces instead of a full length piece. would mean cutting out less frame rail.

thanks for bringing that up, as it would be a large chunk of it gone, this way I could only cut out small pieces, but still have a solid piece for the nuts to be welded too.

This is exactly what I did when I instlled my frame stiffners. 1 piece of flat stock with nuts on the back. I intalled my stiffners first , and then cut out the stiffners, and welded the flat stock with nuts flush with the stiffners and the uniframe. has worked really well and is alot stronger than the stock studs. Micah

just to update and show some pics of the end result to fix the nutsert problem.

I went with option B, cutting smaller rectangles of the frame rails out (2.5" x 1.5")
cut the same size pieces out of 1/8" flat stock (tad smaller to fit in with weld)
went with 1/2" grade8 hardware, which should be a tad stronger than the M10x1.5 stock nutserts and bolts.
drilled holes, welded nuts over the holes, and welded the pieces onto the stiffiners.






it turned out well, and lets me get back to installing these things once and for all, which means the long arm installed soon after.

well after looking at the install intrustions, I figured I could skip a bit of measuring and marking and frustration under the rig, and get it done before hand.

since I had to remove the nutserts, and replace them as above pics show, I bolted the x-member to the frame rails, straightened/squared everything up, and tightened the bolts down. I don't have a scale around, but jeez all that is some heavy and cumbersome to move around like this.


after that, bolted up the brackets which need 2 holes drilled through the rails, involving measuring, marking, drilling all while under the rig.
square it up, centered it on the slots and tightened it down too. than marked the center and transfered that to the stiffiners. then measured down the stiffiners 1 1/4" for the center of the holes required. drill those holes (small holes in pic)


after that, step the holes out to 3/4" so the bolt sleeves will fit, 3/4" with a touch of die grinding and they hammer in nice n tight. bonus, the holes lined up perfectly.


Granted I still have a few more holes that have to be marked, drilled through the frame/stiffiners, but I won't be able to get these welded on for a little while so this should have saved atleast 30+ minutes of headache having to install, mark, uninstall, drill, install, check and repeat as necessary. Once everything is welded up, I can simply center punch those holes and drill through the frame rails.