removing a right rear nut strip on 97

I'm installing a JRC Offroad rear bumper and came upon this glitch. I have one OEM nut strip on the right side that is in the way. I believe it is there to support the exhaust bracket (97 XJ). Should I cut through the sheet metal and then through the nut strip behind the exhaust bracket, so as to retain the strip for the exhaust bracket and free up space for the JCR bolt-ons? Or, maybe re-tap the rusted nut strip threads so that the JRC bolts will strew into them, then cut the protruding nut strip that gets in the way of the JRC bumper attachment plate, Or... did someone else solve this successfully?

It's the nut strip that would bolt on the exhaust hanger and it has like 7 holes total into it, right? If you look along the bottom of the framerail where you would bolt up the hanger to, you'll see 2 aluminum rivets. Drill those out, take a pry bar and pry up the nut strip from the back of the framerail where the bumper attaches. That's how I did it.

You can knock those rivets out with a hammer and screwdriver.

Mugless said:

I'm installing a JRC Offroad rear bumper and came upon this glitch. I have one OEM nut strip on the right side that is in the way. I believe it is there to support the exhaust bracket (97 XJ). Should I cut through the sheet metal and then through the nut strip behind the exhaust bracket, so as to retain the strip for the exhaust bracket and free up space for the JCR bolt-ons? Or, maybe re-tap the rusted nut strip threads so that the JRC bolts will strew into them, then cut the protruding nut strip that gets in the way of the JRC bumper attachment plate, Or... did someone else solve this successfully?

Click to expand...

The rear bolt on the exhaust hanger is a stud. What i did was cut it out since i had a nutstrip to replace the rusty one that was in there. On my last 97 I tapped the holes which was a pita since there is not much room to work with. I would suggest just cutting the stud out of it out and replacing it with a nutstrip thats in better shape or new.

that stud will unscrew if you use a 8mm on the end of it!

DesertRunner said:

that stud will unscrew if you use a 8mm on the end of it!

Click to expand...

Not when it strips. The dremel took care of it though!

guess i got lucky having a 97 cali xj! i had to remove those studs just a few weeks ago to install a hitch!

DesertRunner said:

guess i got lucky having a 97 cali xj! i had to remove those studs just a few weeks ago to install a hitch!

Click to expand...

Yeah i did it last week. Surprisingly it was coming out without too much effort then it got rounded off.

Thanks for all the input. For those faced with similar situations here's what I ended up doing in the process of installing a JCR rear bumper. First I unbolted the exhaust hanger bracket which left me with the two studs still screwed into the nut strip. These, in my case, unscrewed fine with the above mentioned 8mm. Then I popped the aluminum rivets by pushing a pry bar underneath the nut strip, mine popped with really no effort.
The bracket that JCR supplies you with is not their nut strip, but just bracket that bolts onto the rear most 2 bolt holes. So I cut my OME nut strip I just removed in half and slid it back into the frame so I could re-attach my exhaust hanger and free up the rear most holes for the JCR bracket.
The JCR front bumper turned out to be another challenge, as I purchased the optional Unibody Tie-in Brackets, the holes didn't match up with my XJ. I had to take the steal plates to a metal shop to have them re-cut. I would suggest to for-go purchasing a this pre-made bracket and make a template of your XJ's bolt holes, plate height and depth, and have it fabbed up for you.

I guess I didn't have that many issues.

Took us about an hour and a half to get it in, and a lot of that had to do with taking off the original bumper.

I used the OEM Nut strips to bolt it up.