MotorAxeDaddy

I'm trying to get a trailer hitch installed and there is a muffler pipe hanger bracket bolted to the unibody frame. Its one of those situations where the nut is on a plate that is slid into the frame, sort of like a flag nut.

I've got on the thing with my IR 231 impact and it won't budge. I have to put a 2 foot breaker bar on it to even get it to budge and it is just extremely slow going and it is creaking like crazy. Its taking forever to loosen this with the breaker bar due to how awkward it is to get to. My halfway dead 3/8 ratchet is skipping when I use that with a pipe over it. I tried to spray some kroil up in there to lube the backside of the bolt, but its in the frame and my kroil straw doesn't seem to be able to get into the frame enough to hit the bolt.

Should I just try and lube this thing like crazy with some kind of right angle tubing contraption inside the frame, or should I lay down some cash and get a mega impact wrench (> 1000 ft-lbs), or just get a really heavy duty ratchet and a pipe and just get angry with it (maybe all the above?)

Keep in mind that I CANT get heat to the nut, its inside the frame kind of floating and is completely shielded from heat by the frame. I could heat the head of the bolt, but that goes against the concept of "heating around the nut to expand it".

Any ideas are welcome.

Thanks.

buckshot500

If you are just trying out get the exhaust hanger out of the way, and you don't care about that bolt or nut then how about grinding the head off the bolt?

Maybe then you could use a magnet on a stick to fish out the rest of the bolt and it's nut?

Edit; forgot to mention, using a 4-1/2" right angle grinder.

MotorAxeDaddy

Thanks for the reply. I can't grind it off because the bolt gets reused as a mount point for the trailer hitch. The flag nut thing that is inside the frame is really long and I'm not sure how many other bots its attached to, so if I broke or ground off the bolt I'd have to drill it out for the hitch flag plate.

I can't wait to oil up the underside of this vehicle, we get it so bad up here in new england with the salt pouring lunatics in the winter.

I have a feeling the guys at the auto shop stick some kind of jackhammer impact wrench on steroids in there and have it out in one shot, but I don't know any mechanics to ask them. I really want to work on my own jeep, but its a real bummer dealing with crusty frozen bolts.

Copperhead

Reading your post is like a bad walk down memory lane for me. I hit mine from the inside of the frame with PBlaster, but still had a heck of a time with that bolt. Used a breaker bar and yeah...it was slow going with same loud creaking noises. Just take your time and don't strip it...it's a long bolt.. Are you changing the nut strips?

mr white

Grind it off. Buy new nutstrips and bolts. JCR has some.

karl4x4

Memory lane for me as well. It snapped. All the other ones came off. Took the bumper off and there is a bar inside the frame with all the nuts welded on. Its easy to replace.

Take the bumper off and look inside the frame, you will see what I mean.

If I was doing an other one, I'd get the big 1/2 bar and snap that bolt off and just replace the "nut bar" inside the frame. Of course I would put some anti seize on the new ones...

MotorAxeDaddy

My hitch kit came with plates with square holes in them for the supplied carriage bolts. Its the type where they supply you with a little wire with a spring coil on the end to attach the bolt to and fish it through the frame. I have prepped the drivers side and installed the nuts temporarily to hold them in, but the nut strip on the passengers side is driving me nuts (pun intended).

So in theory if I do get stuck I can grind the bolt and somehow fish the nut strip out of there after removing the bumper? Do any of you guys remember from doing yours if the nut strip is attached to one exhaust bracket bolt, or both of them?

How hard is it to take the bumper off? Hopefully I can at least get to those nuts to apply heat and/or penetrating lube if it comes to that.

Thanks again.

freegdr

Bumper comes with 4 bolts two of which are torques . Attaching hitch with nut strips instead of supplied hardware will give you much stronger results by spreading out the stress on much greater area. These leave much to be desired in my opinion...

karl4x4

IF you are doing some serious towing, I would't put much longevity faith on those little square pieces. The factory units are far, far far superior.

I couldn't find a picture but found it in my part list. Its item 2 on the picture. Notice, it uses 4 attaching point per side. To create any frame damage, you would have to..... well really screw up..
The part is about 3/16" thick and has all the nuts welded to it.

Its the only way to go if you are going to tow anything heavy.

The 4.0 L CAN PULL HARD, very hard. To hard for its own good some times.

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/t...eiverhitch.png (link is corrected. sorry for the mistake)

Removing the rear bumper is more involved on the newer jeeps but not that hard to do.

MotorAxeDaddy

I managed to get the bolt out. Since I had cracked it a couple turns with the breaker bar I was able to squirt some Kroil under the screw head and then I was able to run the bolt in and then out again with my impact wrench. I had to buy a proper 24" breaker bar and an impact extension, but those will definitely get used again!

I'm still trying to decide whether or not to try and sneak the trailer hitch hardware in under the nut strip for the remaining bolt holes (3 of the 4 nuts in the nut strip are rusted beyond repair) or to be hardcore and pull the last remaining bolt from the nut strip and remove the bumper to replace it. If I can I'd like to wait until I replace the bumper to pull the bumper off!

Anyhow, thanks for your help guys.

MotorAxeDaddy

OK, finally got it squared away. Thanks for all your help guys.

It took me a weekend to get the bumper off (rusty bolts in tight places = PAIN), a week to get right and left dealer nut plates (yeah, in hind sight getting them from JCR with overnight shipment might have been quicker and cheaper) and then an hour or two last night to put never seize on the bolts and run them in, oil the heck out of the bumper and frame with Fluid Film rust preventative and then bolt everything back up. If I ever do a custom rear bumper this sucker should come out a ton easier!

THX

Copperhead

The whole weekend?... Just busting 'em...I think I had about 10 hours into the whole process with mine. I took the the same approach, all new hardware and dealt with the rust best I could. Just an FYI for others...Morris 4x4 has the nut strips for 20 bucks each, but they call them sill reinforcement brackets.

Etrailer.com gives an estimate of 40 minutes for the install.

While a guess that's possible in a perfect rust free world....I honestly couldn't see slapping a new hitch on without removing the bumper and cleaning all the surrounding area and parts.

xjsnake

I paid $15 each from the stealership a couple years ago. I took a breaker bar and just snapped the bolts off. Had everything torn apart in about 20 minutes. Two new nut strips and an extra pair of hands and the whole trailer hitch install took a touch over an hour.

MotorAxeDaddy

My excuse is that I have three young kids and had to make several trips to the store For tools. I ended up going to my work to get my half inch socket set since it had just a little bit deeper sockets to get on the bumper nut. I still needed to put a pipe over it and go one click at a time. I didn't have the gear wrench set for metric (but i do now)Keep in mind that a weekend for me is about 3 to 4 hours