I am going to disclaim my lack of experience with Jeeps and automobiles in general right away, so any help or advice is appreciated. I have recently been evaluating my XJ because I want to start fixing and modding it myself, a midst the rusty underside I noticed a bit of carpeting coming through my floor pan. I plan on replacing the floor pan with an OEM replacement part, but when I began disassembling the interior I noticed the bolts holding the seats were too rusted to remove. Anyone have suggestions? Penetrating lube and a wrench wont work because the head of the bolt is now jagged and crumbling....

(sorry I don't have pics, if you want to see it I can post some tomorrow)

 

At this point, I would thouroughly suggest patching, as I am doing with mine. To be honest, most new floor pans purchased do not have the luxuries of a place to mount your seats. This causes a lot of problems, like when I was working on my 1980 Camaro. I would just patch weld it, and leave sleeping beasts lie. If you break the bolt, which is rusted to all hell, its just more of a pain.

Either that or use an extractor kit, torch to heat it up and PB blaster to get in there. PB first, then drill the hole in the bolt, then torch it to get it nice and hot, then extract...

 

Patching works good for relatively small areas. Over 50% of my floor was GONE! Including intrusion into surrounding metal and up the trans tunnel. I tried replacement sections from C2C but they require a LOT of shaping. (Maybe they can find a home in the CJ) Ended up getting a one piece OEM floor pan. In fact it gets set in place and start welding in the morning. The Blacksmith has an excellent write up on his floor replacement. Highly recommend looking at it.