broken rear shock bolt write up

ok, this is one of my first write up's so i'll do my best =), sorry for the poor quality pictures, it was taken with my 2mp camera phone

im going to skip straight to the problem because i didnt have any before i broke it pictures.
so heres the 2 broken bolts that everyone loves to hate


i broke them off with this simple wrench =/



so to cure this problem what you want to do is get yourself at least a hammer and a punch and give it a few good wacks, be sure to wear either goggles or safety glasses because dirt will get all in your eyes
if you did it right the result will look like this

the broken bolts/nuts should look something like this



after i found out what i was working with ( the holes ) i went down and bought some grade 8 bolts they are 5/16th X 1" bolts with 1/2" sae heads.

what i did to feed them in thru the holes because you cant obviously get your hands in there was get some fishing line and tied it to the bolt at the beginning of the thread, i found out later that to make things easier, i should of fed it thru the bolt hole first then tied it to the nut and pulled it thru... it was just easier
heres the fishing line i used.

... ok so i didnt have 3 hands so heres a picture of them in the holes

once i got the bolts in i proceeded to install the shocks, you have to be careful not to push them back thru or you'll really be up a creek w/o a paddle
so heres the final picture of the shock bolted up, you may need a 1/2" wrench to feed into the top side to hold the head in place while you tighten up the nut


im pretty sure you can take care of the bottom bolt its just a slide and tighten sorta deal, hope this helps someone out

Not a bad write up!

Wish the pictures were still working on this. I can't picture how the fishing line thing works.

I had a fishwire tool from my hitch install, a long thin piece of wire with a tight coil at the end. Coil goes around end of bolt. run other end of wire through bolt hole, and pull. Bolt will naturally follow. Remove fishwire, line up shock, and install nut and tighten to spec.

http://www.rocklizardfabrications.com/broken_shock_mounts.htm if you can't fish the bolts in.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is no reason to cut holes in the floor. I didn't use fish wire. I used grease to hold the nuts to my box wrench:

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=934954&page=2

For my last effort in this category, I knocked the old nuts out, and then took some pieces of 1/2 wide by approx. 1/8 thick mild steel strapping, cut them about 6 inches long, and tapped holes near the ends. I then bent them as needed to fish the holes into line, and used them as nuts. Easy work, easy to get in and to get out next time (if they shear, just shear, pull and toss). If you have a drill and a tap, this makes for a quick fix without a lot of fishing.

Matthew Currie said:

For my last effort in this category, I knocked the old nuts out, and then took some pieces of 1/2 wide by approx. 1/8 thick mild steel strapping, cut them about 6 inches long, and tapped holes near the ends. I then bent them as needed to fish the holes into line, and used them as nuts. Easy work, easy to get in and to get out next time (if they shear, just shear, pull and toss). If you have a drill and a tap, this makes for a quick fix without a lot of fishing.

Click to expand...

Wow, I really like this idea! My hitch kit came with similar nuts, approx. 6" long 24ga steel strapping tack-welded to the nuts that went inside the frame rails. Made things MUCH easier.