97xjcountry

Hey everyone,

I am the proud owner of a 97 cherokee country edition.

Like many other i have the well known rear end sag. I ordered up a set of replacment leafs and started the big task last night.

I got the old shocks off, breaking the two top bolts just like everyone else. Resolved that by drilling and tapping new threads.

Now on to the fun part... When I went to remove the front Leaf spring bolt, the one closest to the front of the jeep, it won't coma ll the way out.

I got it to break loose and out about an inch, from there it just spins the metal sleeve inside the bushing. Spent 4 hours wrestling with it and gave up. It went back in just fine. It's just hanging on that sleeve, you cant get anything up in there that is string enough to hold the sleeve while you try and back the bolt out.

I did read the "how to"'s on many xj sites, they all seem to get the bolt out no problem...


Any tips?

jd4x426

make sure you spray it up gud with pb blaster and then give a few gud wacks with bfh and try spinnning it out then if that dont work try usin some heat

97xjcountry

Thanks for the reply.

Where would you heat? It's not like the bolt is stuck in the nut that is welded to the uni body. It's stuck in the metal sleeve that runs through the leaf bushing.

Has anyone used a puller or something to pull it out of the bushing ?. I can't fit a chisel between the leaf mount and the bolt...?

Last resort is cutting the bolt off I guess.

a1racer

i used a sawsall on mine just make sure to cut it over enough to get some pliers on the piece left over

LongHornCherokeeMan

same thing happened to me i got pissed and just pulled the hell out of the leaf spring until the bolt came out

jrhockey03

Is there any room to pound on a socket or a centre (sp. Canadian, eh) punch?

97xjcountry

Glad to see that I am not the only one that has had issues with these stupid bolts. The Cherokee is a great creation but the engineers that thought up these bolt locations were not thinking of future repairability.

I think I am just going to get it out as far as possible and cut the bolt head off. Hopefully it will have cleared enough on the threaded end to allow the leaf to drop out of the mounting bracket. You can't get at the back side(threaded side) of the bolt because the leaf mount is a sealed metal box with a nut welded on the insude for the bolt to screw into.

I am going to have to do the same on the back because of my hitch. Only about 2" of clearance between the bolt head and the hitch mount.... dumb I tell ya! Oh well, another weekend spent in the garage!