cradle bolt just spins in its housing

mywhite89

Registered User
Uh oh......I was trying to pull my rear subframe out today to sand it down and re-paint it while everything is apart. Every bolt holding the rear subframe was very tight to the point that I feared of breaking them off so I almost just decided to do all the work on my back without removing the subframe. Instead, the left rear bolt I was able to break loose with the impact so I decide to at least take it out to grease it up. After getting it about 1 inch out I seem to have broken whatever it screws into on the frame of the car. Now it neither comes out nor screws back in.

Any ideas on what to do guys? Kind of a scary ordeal being that every other bolt is probably in just as bad of shape.
 
Those are captive nuts welded inside the chassis. If it breaks loose, I've only heard of folks cutting into the chassis and welding them back on. In the mean time you'll likely have to cut that bolt to get things out of the way so you can get serious about it.
 
I've been thinking about it. I get the feeling I'm going to have the same problem on the other bolts. Looks like I may have to make my own access hole through the trunk and just fix the one problem!:eek: No reason to take the cradle out and risk others breaking.
 
was your brother with you? lol blame it on him. if it's not one thing it's another isn't it ? pull it over here and we'll weld it back on.
 
Naa i was just kidding him about it he was saying that everytime his brother goes out for a drive with him something happens. so i just figured it was like that this time lol
 
Lol, my brother moved to Wisconsin so nobody to blame anymore! I got the cradle out yesterday. It may sound bad, but it was pretty easy really once I got around the fact that I had to make holes in my car to access the nuts. I made two access holes in the trunk for the rear cradle bolts. For the front two cradle bolts I had to drill holes on the side frame rail. I had to really put the heat to every nut to get the bolts to break loose.

Makes me feel a lot better that I got it out.....I win! I'll post up some pictures when I get it all back together. Probably be a few weeks of working on the diff rebuild and tranny repair before I get it together again. Shooting for the 3rd week in April.

Chris
 
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got any pics where you had to make the holes from inside the trunk, i might have to do this.
 
here's some pictures for ya, the holes I drilled for the trunk are on either side of my MP chin spoiler that I still havent installed!
 
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Thanks for the pictures. So can you explain what you did? Just drilled holes and torched through them? Or did you use a wrench on the nuts?
 
Could you tell how much rust was on the exposed threads of the bolts....:confused:

I just removed two sets of sub frame bolts this afternoon....

Gotta love our southern cars.....:p
 
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