Hi, For about 7 years gave up on struts wearing out, used a ski pole to hold it open. My pass side strut has fallen out of the tailgate.

Hmmm, its dangling from body side. Its a blind hole, so am perplexed as to how to reattach the stud as the nut inside the tailgate seems to have fallen. Can see no reason for the stud/ball joint to rotate so it seems the nut inside spun off.

Anyone have a clue as to how to fix? 1996 XJ

 

Correct, they are captured nuts. I have had this issue on the chassis side. Had to weld on the 10mm ball stud.
An option may be to use a secondary bracket that has the 10mm ball stud, there are many configurations of the bracket. This one pictured is considered 'reverse ball mount'.

 

Same issue on my 96 except the stud/ball was not even there. I went to a local salvage yard and found the stud and welded it on.

 

FYI. If you chose to weld it, disconnect battery. Otherwise jeep may never run again.

 

Most helpful info, all of you. This forum is great. I will look again but think rear lid is fiberglass, hopefully where stud went is steel, if so should be able to weld it in or something.

It does have 220k and maybe 50k rough offroad, but still am amazed the captured nut could spin itself off.

Ah, if the nut is rattling around maybe by lifting gate can get it to the hole again. Will check while sun still up.

Update: Great News. The nut is still there. The ball joint is very smooth, it is very easy to spin the stud in joint. So all I have to do is locktite and visegrip it back into captured nut. Whew! Could not see it last nite when found teh problem. Thanks guys.

 

^ Great! Thanks for the update. And yes, I failed to mention/remember that the hatch is fiberglass on our 96's.