Broken bolt, now what? I'll tell ya what...

Ok, here is how the story went. This is in an '01 Limited. Got the first 3 bolts out no problem, all pre soaked. The last bolt, on the driver's side, SNAP! Drilled, EZ-out snapped in the bolt! Since then I've dulled numerous bits, broke a bit, bought SUPER TOUGH bits and dulled them. Bought "Bolt Extractors" and dulled them. I really thought they were going to be the answer, but never could get anything to drill into that broken EZ-out. Now you gotta understand, this went on for about 4-6 nights, cramping arms and all . I just about couldn't apply any pressure to the drill anymore when I Whipped out the Air Hammer. Plugged in the pointy chisel thingy...never used one of these before. It came with my compressor! Hit it about 3 times and the POS welded in nut with my broken bolt popped right off!!!!!!!!!!!!!! party1: I wish I would have done that first.
Problem not solved yet, but I've made more progress in 5 minutes than I had in the past week. Now, search the garage for a suitable bolt and nut. First try, the bolt is too short. Next try with longer bolt. Now I used the Coat Hanger method, with a little magnetic pick up thingy to fish this bolt up in the subframe. It can be done. BUT, the longer bolt won't make the turn to go in the hole :bawl: ...........Whip out the Die Grinder.....make that hole a little longer and WHAMO! We're in. Hit the grinded part with some paint....go pee and eat. Come back out and assemble. You CAN get a wrench back up in there to hold the top of the bolt, not easy but doable. I thought about sticking some JB weld up on the bolt head to hold it, but was too impatient at that time to let it set up!
So, done. Got a bolt up in there, and a nut on the bottom. Sinched down good. seems to be tight, and I'm sore all over!
Hope this helps some one in the future. Just bang it out, and spend your time slipping in a bolt from the top. I really didn't want to cut into the floor, and this wasn't nearly as bad as wasting my time and energy drilling no where. Forget the EZ-out. If anyone tries the "Bold Extractors" first, let me know if that works? My situation was too far gone at that point!

what 4 bolts are we talking about here?? Leaf spring bolts or shocks bolts?(both my passenger side rear shocks bolts are broken, so I'm hoping you say shock bolts)

Sounds good, did you remember to put anti-seize on the new ones :laugh3: Or do you just want to go this again next time

just came in from busting all four of my shock bolts. Thanks to Deke, it was a cake walk. (by the way, I have a 97 XJ, PB's the bolts for almost 3 weeks!)

Put punch on busted off bolt, hit with small sledge very hard several times. POP goes the weld and nut. Buy some grade 8 1.25 long bolts and nuts. tape the NUT into a long wrench, slide back in there, bolt up thru. Done.

to tape nut in, I ran electrical tape around nut once, then put in wrench, the taped the top/back, stayed great.

Hope this helps, if it does not make sense, e-mail me at [email protected] and I will try better. It will help if you crawl under there first.

Jason

Forget the anti-seize. My method is tried and trued. Aquire a leak in the transfer case, hopefully it will be somewhere you cant find like mine. Say screw the leak, just keep adding ATF and voila, you have a self lubricating undercarriage :greensmok


Mike

Backdraft said:

Forget the anti-seize. My method is tried and trued. Aquire a leak in the transfer case, hopefully it will be somewhere you cant find like mine. Say screw the leak, just keep adding ATF and voila, you have a self lubricating undercarriage :greensmok

Mike

Click to expand...

Thats what I do, pint of obil-1 atf every 6 months or so.

Red97XJ said:

just came in from busting all four of my shock bolts. Thanks to Deke, it was a cake walk. (by the way, I have a 97 XJ, PB's the bolts for almost 3 weeks!)

Put punch on busted off bolt, hit with small sledge very hard several times. POP goes the weld and nut. Buy some grade 8 1.25 long bolts and nuts. tape the NUT into a long wrench, slide back in there, bolt up thru. Done.

to tape nut in, I ran electrical tape around nut once, then put in wrench, the taped the top/back, stayed great.

Hope this helps, if it does not make sense, e-mail me at [email protected] and I will try better. It will help if you crawl under there first.

Jason

Click to expand...

The other alternative is to put in a set of BPE's and say done.

Those comments were about my last upper shock mount. It wasn't too much trouble to drop the bolt in from above. It would obviously work better to tack weld the bolt at the top. But I think I'm good for awhile. Oh, and this was during my install of JKS Bar Pin Eliminators, as well as new (old to me) shocks!
What mod's next?