greythunder3

Iam looking soon to upgrade my stock height shocks to belsteins and im so afraid to break one of the rear top bolts.

Other than bathing them in pb blaster for a week before hand, is an impact wrench gonna have less tendancy to break them over a ratchet and muscle?

UsmclovesXJ

.....nope it will snap still

cherokee90

"IMPACT"' hahah

sam24th

I think your gonna have to just bite the bullet and use a wrench to get it off. The only thing using an impact will do is prevent marring up the bolt really. Also nice to see another person from Charlotte on here.

Slick761

Only saving grace is the impacts ability to jerk the nut free. If it doesn't happen after a few hammers its probably going to break.

sigsandjeeps

Just break em. Go get floral wire. Wrap the threads of your new bolts in the wire and take the 2 minutes and put new hardware in. Trust me. It literally takes longer to go to the parts house than it does to install new hardware.

blue_on_blackXJ

This.

I swear if more people knew about this there wouldn't be 49328750382475 people asking a day how to fix the shock bolts.

jomps

this was easy to. didnt feel like going fishing!

Converted96

You could do what i did, but I still broke one, but thats cause i got a little carried away when loosening.

i used PB and heat. i then tried loosening to just break free, and I mean "Just". then I tightened, then loosened and went a little bit more, then tightened. i went back and forth alot. sometimes without making progress just to wear down the built up rust.

i hit them with heat several times during the process and got 3 of 4 out. took about 10 to 15 mins a bolt to get out. the other i broke, and got an air hammer and punch and knocked the weld nut out and fished a new bolt across the large opening toward the middle of the body underneath, as stated above.

or you could just brake them, knock them out and fish new hardware in, or cut the floor like the above pic.

jeep should have done this from the beginning, put in an access plug or something up there just in case. After doing my lift, there are several spots they should have put access holes at.. lol

xj_maniac_newb

try to just wrench them like normal. it took LESS time to do the left side(broke both) than the right side (neither broke) wasnt hard whatsoever, do NOT try to use ease outs. not worth the time

xj_maniac_newb

air chisel is greatness getting the weld nuts out takes literally 5 seconds to knock them both out

wildbill1

In this particular case, breaking the shock bolts in a non-issue. The repair is very easy.

In general, I think sometimes the use of an impact can decrease the likelihood of breaking bolts. My impacts have an adjustment on them that will allow decreasing the torque. Sometimes on a stubborn, rusty bolt, the multiple gentle hits from the impact combined with the use of a good penetrating oil like Kroil, will work better then steady torque with a wrench, IMO.

Squid

that would be my last resort
I changed my shocks and it took less than an hour w/o resorting to body work.

Slick761

Anyone knock the bits out and just weld some allthread in??

wildbill1

When I installed shocks in my rust belt Illinois Jeep, I broke all 4 bolts off. I just knocked out the broken bolts and the weld nuts with a hammer and punch and fished new bolts in from the top with a piece of thin tie wire and put lock washers and nuts on the bottom. Nothing to it.