Can't break spot welds on rear shock nuts?

[darjevon]

Realized why my new xj bounces so much - that dumb PO tried to replace the rear shocks, and broke all the bolts off at the top. Instead of solving the problem however, he just removed the shocks entirely.

OK I have a three pound drilling hammer with an 8-inch shank and a 1/4 inch metal punch with a flat tip. I have been wacking these bolts for 1 1/2 hours now to no avail. How hard should this be? Do i just need to get a bigger hammer? I have noticed that the remaining thread of the bolts seems to have become one (corrosion) with the surroinding nut...

Are there any tricks for making the welds easier to "pop"? Heat? Cold? hammer drill?

I'm also wondering, as concerns the rear leaf springs, how rusty is... too rusty? Mine have about a 1/2 inch of sag in the back, which I hope will be partially alleviated by the new shocks when I finally put them in. However, both the leaf springs and the shackles are rusty as hell, yet they will still hold up the car. How much are replacements and where can you get them from?

 

[XJ Samo]

Realized why my new xj bounces so much - that dumb PO tried to replace the rear shocks, and broke all the bolts off at the top. Instead of solving the problem however, he just removed the shocks entirely.

OK I have a three pound drilling hammer with an 8-inch shank and a 1/4 inch metal punch with a flat tip. I have been wacking these bolts for 1 1/2 hours now to no avail. How hard should this be? Do i just need to get a bigger hammer? I have noticed that the remaining thread of the bolts seems to have become one (corrosion) with the surroinding nut...

Are there any tricks for making the welds easier to "pop"? Heat? Cold? hammer drill?

I'm also wondering, as concerns the rear leaf springs, how rusty is... too rusty? Mine have about a 1/2 inch of sag in the back, which I hope will be partially alleviated by the new shocks when I finally put them in. However, both the leaf springs and the shackles are rusty as hell, yet they will still hold up the car. How much are replacements and where can you get them from?

Good luck with the bolts maybe try a screw extractor?
As for your leaf springs, all XJ's sag in the rear unless lifted or the springs have been replaced. Use the search and you will find plenty of info on leafspring.
You can get them from Quadratec.
-Sam

 

[riverfever]

I cut a hole in the floor and gained access to the nuts when I went to replace them.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

I cut a hole in the floor and gained access to the nuts when I went to replace them.

x2. its way easier and its just covered up by the carpet anyway. i just used a chisel to snap off the nuts that were welded into the rear crossmember. then i primered the hell out of the cut edges and put a small hinge on each panel i cut out. now when i need to change shocks i just pull up the carpet and have someone hold the ratchet while i hit it from underneath.

 

[MrShaft696]

I am not sure what you are doing with that big drill but, I broke all 4 of my bolts and drilled them all out. Then I taped a nut to a wrench stuck it in the hole in the unibody right in that area and put a new bolt on top of the old drilled out weld nut.

 

[darjevon]

I just went out and finally picked up an air compressor and an air hammer w/ point punch. I am sick of wacking this stupid bolt to no avail and it's about time I got some air tools anyway. I'll post if it works...

 

[RichP]

Drill them out next size down from whats in there and rethread the darn things with a tap. Use plenty of anti-seize on the new ones.

 

[darjevon]

OK the air hammer OFFICIALLY does not work. Strong as a jackhammer but the punch point just "mushroomed" and the bolt was smoothed out flat. The weld didn't go.

Now to cut through my floor and try a dremel...

 

[riverfever]

I used a BFH and a chissel on the nuts from the top. Took all of 30 minutes including cutting the floor.

 

[bjoehandley]

How'd you not notice the missing shocks when you bought it?

 

[Shorty]

Drill them out next size down from whats in there and rethread the darn things with a tap. Use plenty of anti-seize on the new ones.

X2^
drill 'em and tap 'em! The bolts aint that tough-- they broke fairly easily, didn't they? just kidding- but I swear they will drill before they will give up and disappear from an air hammer! center punch and drill
--Shorty:wave1:

 

[darjevon]

FIXED FIXED FIXED!!! arty:

I bought a Ti drill bit set, a 54mm hole saw, and a dremel with metal cutoff wheels.

I pulled the carpet first. It's easy enough, just remove the surrounding trim and pull the carpet up over the anchors.

I then got under the car and used a small drill bit to drill a pilot hole to show where I needed to cut holes.

I then got back out and used the hole saw from above to cut two holes to match the location right above the nuts.

I then used a dremel w/ a metal cutoff wheel to simply slice off the weldnuts from above.

Because the dremel didn't quite remove all of the remaining weld-nut, I took the 5/16 bit and quickly popped through each of the nuts.

Hit the exposed metal edges created by the dremel and the hole saw with some gray auto primer.

Then, use Grade 8, 1 1/4 inch long, 5/16 bolts with lockwashers to attach the shocks.

Voila! new shocks.

I'm pissed that I couldn't break the welds from below with the punch and hammer, but then again I am a skinny 15 y/o.

P.S. ATTENTION SAGGING XJ OWNERS!!!

My leaf springs had like an inch of sag on both sides, but thanks to these Monroe "coil over" rear shocks

http://www.oreillyauto.com/EW3/ProductDetail.do?id=460875341&client_ip=75.64.193.3&manualActivantIndex=2&vehicle=1999%20JEEP%20CHEROKEE%20(XJ)%20-%20L6-4.0L%20FI

my jeep is now about a half-inch above the stock height. That's right, you can get a little lift for almost nothing with these babies. They make the ride really nice too, nice and firm but not harsh. Handling is dramatically improved...

I'll put some pics of the process up later, but for now, thanks a ton to everyone who helped with this.

 

[jfiscus]

Hit the exposed metal edges created by the dremel and the hole saw with some gray auto primer.

Hey, I wanted to let you know that primer is just as bad as leaving it unpainted, cause it's porous & traps water, you have to paint over primer.

 

[96GreenXJjeep]

all i did was drill a hole thru my frame and fab'd up a bracker and weled to the fraem on the inside of the ferame and put a long grade 8 bolt in it and not its fine

 

[camarors8992]

did he completely ignore the drill and top method that would have kept him from cutting holes in his floor ? I became almost aggravated while I read this thread.

 

[RichP]

did he completely ignore the drill and top method that would have kept him from cutting holes in his floor ? I became almost aggravated while I read this thread.

You can lead a horse.....

 

[Rick Anderson]

I had to cut holes in the floor and chisel/cut/grind the weld nuts out. Judging from the posts I've seen on this subject and being able to easily pop out weld nuts on my brothers wrangler, I've come to conclusion that Jeep has used different weld-nuts of varying strength over the years.

I've popped them out with a punch or chisel and hammber, at worst I had to use an Air Chisel for a few seconds to pop out the weld-nut. The weld-nut looked like a normal nut, just some spot weld marks on them.

Until I got my '95 XJ, 3 of the 4 rear shock bolts seized and snapped. I tried to drill them out, 1 of the 3 successful, but the other 2, even with a pilot hole, got off center too far and destroyed the threads on the nut.

I attempted to pop out those weld-nuts on this '95 XJ and they wouldn't budge, I tried for hours with an air-chisel as well. Finally I cut the floor out above the bad weld-nuts and these weld-nuts were totally different. They had to twice the size of a normal nut for that thread, a very thick wide piece of steel. I had to cut/chisel/grind them down and put in new nuts that I tacked up with a welder.

 

[sjkimmel99]

Lessee, he's fifteen years old, confronted by a problem, works hard, asks for help, applies some of the advice and then solves the problem. Maybe not the way you'd solve the problem but he solved it. Who hasn't done it the hard way(assuming it was the hard way) once or twice or a million times.

Good job kid. :yelclap:

 

[darjevon]

Hey, I wanted to let you know that primer is just as bad as leaving it unpainted, cause it's porous & traps water, you have to paint over primer.

Thanks I'll hit it with some paint later today.

 

[darjevon]

did he completely ignore the drill and top method that would have kept him from cutting holes in his floor ? I became almost aggravated while I read this thread.

STFU dude, I considered that method, but...

1. I wanted to be able to easily change them again later and I figured that way they would probably freeze up again like they did before. I wanted to set it up with a stud poking down from the top and the nut on the bottom so that if disaster struck and the bolt froze, in future I would be able to use a nut splitter to break the nut in half. I wish Jeep could have set it up like this in the first place...

2. I'm really bad at drill and tap, I always manage to get the bolt to go in all crooked.

3. I heard elsewhere that the nut is small and won't stand up to a drill and tap, however now I know firsthand that this is not true.

:gonnablow