oldguy52

I'm getting down to actually starting up the beast on my build and was in the process of installing exhaust system when I noticed I had only shoved the front eye bolts into my rear leafs and not threaded them in. After setting the criver side I went over to the pass side and could not seem to get the bolt to catch a thread. Every time I'd think it was catching it would pop back. I'd hit it with a small ball peen hammer till it felt like it was ready but as soon as I'd turn it, it would pop back. After the third or fourth time I hit a little harder and the bolt just went to far to be anything good. Mind you it's too close to my just painted body to just wail on. I pulled the bolt and dropped the eye and found this.




There's the nut floating helplessly in the pocket. The slag is a futile attempt to pop a tack on the edge of the bolt. Once the cursing was over and I consumed some adult beverage I refocused. My initial take was to go thru the floor under rear pass seat but just couldn't figure the space and angle were going to work out. Only logical approach was to go straight thru the frame rail from the inside. I first drilled a hole with a bit I made very long by tacking a hex drive on it and going from the outside inward to give me a pilot hole on the inside of the frame.


Things get a little ugly here for as you can see the hole by the nut is too small to get the nut out but too big to help as a pilot hole for the hole saw. I maneuvered the nut with a punch so I could get the pilot bit to go thru the nut and just smoked a hole.


Here it is with the nut out which was sitting in the hole saw when I pulled it out. Now here's the nut that came out.


Welded on one side.


No weld on the other! Must have been a Monday car. Hangovers can be a B.

I cut the threaded end off a 6" black pipe nipple and welded the original nut on it.


I then stuck it in the hole until the nut seated as original and marked the pipe for length at the inside frame. I then thought why don't I disguise this fix as a mount point for TBD later. So I welded a receiver nut and big fat washer on the other end.


I installed in the hole and pushed leaf eye back in place. Now I was able to run the eye bolt thru and catch a thread. I torqued it down tight which left the fat washer with just a hair of space before becoming flush with the frame and then fill welded in place.


So there's my nondescript bolt holding absolutely nothing. Maybe I'll find use for it.