Lifted a Jeep - now I need to extract a broken bolt

[BlackRock]

This weekend I did a body lift and suspension lift. All went (mostly) OK, except instead of getting four intact rear upper shock mounting bolts out of the Jeep, I got this instead.

Broken bolts are something new for me, and I felt I was in over my head, but I do have a SpeedOut Extractor set in my tool cabinet. Gave it a try and things went from bad to worse as part of the screw caved in. Now I'm looking at this. My feeble attempts to drill it any further have just had the bit wander into the collapsed area.

Before I make my situation any worse, what should I do now?

 

[L J]

no personal experience but:

https://wranglertjforum.com/google-....#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=upper shock bolt&gsc.page=1

 

[Moglocker]

I would drill em out and bolt in some bar pin eliminators,but you could also drill holes through the the tub and just install rubber plugs that fit the hole good.

 

[BlackRock]

no personal experience but:

I would drill em out and bolt in some bar pin eliminators,but you could also drill holes through the the tub and just install rubber plugs that fit the hole good.

Ok, lots of good threads and ideas for me to work with. Will read through and come up with something.

 

[Moglocker]

you could also just get a dremel with a flex attachment and a cutoff wheel and cut the nut off And bolt on some bar pin eliminators

 

[mrblaine]

you could also just get a dremel with a flex attachment and a cutoff wheel and cut the nut off And bolt on some bar pin eliminators

Are you going to tell him that BPE shorten the amount of shock shaft showing, all other things being equal?

 

[MaximusLJR06]

I ran into this on my old jeep. Had to remove some body mount bolts, jack the body off the frame a couple inches and then used a cutoff wheel to cut the welded nut off. Then just install new grade 8 hardware.

 

[BlackRock]

Are you going to tell him that BPE shorten the amount of shock shaft showing, all other things being equal?

Would that mean slightly less uptravel and slightly more downtravel, or am I overlooking something more obvious?

 

[mrblaine]

Would that mean slightly less uptravel and slightly more downtravel, or am I overlooking something more obvious?

Exactly what it means and if you've spent a fair bit of time dialing that in, now it ain't. Or, buy shocks with a pretty fair balance and then blame the company when it isn't.

 

[macleanflood]

I'd like to see the rest of the rust and corrosion on your Jeep.

I ran into a similar situation with broken shock bolts on The Rubicon Trail. I decided that all the effort to fix the stock location was best spent on outboarding my shocks.

-Mac

 

[TheBoogieman]

I knocked mine out with the bit on the right. Only took a couple minutes. Then I used these.

 

[Feralkid]

Knocking the welded nuts off with an air hammer is the easiest way to fix it as boogie said. You don't need flag nuts because a wrench can easily fit on top of the shock mount, but they are nice to have and will save a few minutes of fiddling around.

 

[JMT]

This weekend I did a body lift and suspension lift. All went (mostly) OK, except instead of getting four intact rear upper shock mounting bolts out of the Jeep, I got this instead.

View attachment 640508

Broken bolts are something new for me, and I felt I was in over my head, but I do have a SpeedOut Extractor set in my tool cabinet. Gave it a try and things went from bad to worse as part of the screw caved in. Now I'm looking at this. My feeble attempts to drill it any further have just had the bit wander into the collapsed area.

View attachment 640509

Before I make my situation any worse, what should I do now?

Use a dremel cut off wheel to reach through the shock hole and cut off the welded nut.

Then reach in from above through the space created by the body lift and put a nut on the back side when you bolt the shock in.

 

[Moglocker]

I knocked mine out with the bit on the right. Only took a couple minutes. Then I used these.
View attachment 640662
View attachment 640663

Cool,I thought these only worked for xj.