My problem is that I have 4 body mount bolts broken of inside the body. I bought the car like this and have no plans of removing the body.
Is there a way to remove them w/o taking body off? there is 2 on each side that are broke,one by the front of the door and the one near the rear of the door.They are broken off flush with the body as usual.My car is a 68

Hello, I had somwhat similar situation w/my 67, but my cage nuts were spinning in the body. I had to use a plasma cutter to open the floor above the nut to get to it. Once I repaired the problem, I welded the floor back up and it looks great. Maybe somebody else has a easier solution. good luck!! smile.gif

I did a frame-off on mine ..(still in progress) and most of the bolts broke off when trying to get them out.

I don't know of any easy ways out. I think you'll have to do what NevrDun67 says.

Short cuts may not be the right thing to do though, depending on the condition of the car. With you being in salt country, and add to that the fact that someone obviously wanted to take those bolts out for some reason, be prepared to find a lot more rust than what you think currently exists.

I found rust behind floor pan support panels where they spot weld to the rockers. It was rusted behind there big time with huge holes ...and I couldn't see any rust behind there at all without taking the supports off. Obviously the structure was deteriorated and with adding enough power and stressing this car enough, things could have got nasty at some time down the line.

I have replaced a lot of sheet metal and supports, but when I finally put it on the road, I'll know it's done right and safe.

Steve

if they are broke flush with the floor and you dont intend to remove body, your only option is to cut a hole in the floor above the bolt and remove the cage nut with broken bolt inside. Then on your vice, heat it red hot with a torch and it should turn out. Then replace nut in cage, cover and weld shut. I'd use a small cut off wheel on a die grinder to cut 3 sides of a square box above the bolt, and pry it up, like a flap. Remove broken bolt and cage and bend flap down and weld shut.
The nut is really a flat bar with a threaded hole in the middle. So if your nut turns around in the body, you must weld onto the side of the nut some kind of metal projection, so it won't turn any more. But given yours are all broken off, they did not turn and enlarge the cage.

Thanks for the help guys. I will let you know how it works out

Rob,

This ain't gonna be pretty ... and you'll have decide if you REALLY want to replace them or not?

Your first solution will be lots of penetrating oil (not WD40) and a left-hand drill bit. Coming from underneath it will have a hard time penetrating, but try daily for a couple weeks and it should get some. Now get ahold of a left-hand drill bit and prepare for lots of aggravation ... if you're lucky the bolt broke because some nim-rod didn't know how to remove a rusty bolt, and the drill bit will take it out for you.

From there your only recourse is to open a hole over top of the bolt, and disassemble the cage. You'll just be left with patching more holes in the floor.

Personally, if you're going to get rid of the car ... I'd seriously consider just how bad you want them replaced. The car is definitely not going to walk itself off the frame.

Neal

I'd feel uneasy about having 4 body bolts missing from my car. First, I think you'll have alignmnet issues- ie: doors not closing right, etc. Then, what happens in hard cornering? I guess it's a bit of a reach to feel like you are shifting with the body, but what about steering, brake functions, strains on wiring to lights, etc.
I feel fortunate- my body bolts didn't break, but i did have some spinning caged nuts in the trunk pan braces. I used a 3" cutoff wheel to creat a square hole, then used vicegrips to hold the nut while removing the bolt. On two of them, I had to cut the caged nut out, and the bolt dropped to the ground. I'm putting new trunk pan braces in when the other rotted panels get replaced.

Is it possible to get rid of the cage nuts? what I am thinking is that it would be easier to cut the cage nuts out and the broken off bolt will come out with it,right? could you just nut and bolt it then weld your access holes back up?Thats the only way I can think of without taking the body off.

It all depends what you want to get in to. The purpose of the cage nut is that it allows some adjustment for the bolt to hit when the body is assembled to the frame. I welded one on my car, but even then took some precaution to make it easy to re-assemble.

You really wouldn't save yourself much effort putting a through bolt in there ... as opposed to the cage nut assembly. That and nobody would be able to get it apart again. I would suggest against it.

If you're set on cutting the holes open on your floorboard, I would be pretty confident that penetrating oil would work from the top (may need some heat applied). And you wouldn't have to disassemble the cage. Overall your car isn't that rusty in those areas, so I wouldn't think the bolts would be impossible to remove.

Did you look into the left-handed drill bit method? The only difficulty there is if the break area is sloped that you can't get the drill to hit it ... Or, you spin the cage nut inside. Other than that, it's actually a very effective method for removing bolts.

Again like I said earlier ... decide what you want to do with the car, because you'll probably have 1-3hrs labor into each of those bolts regardless of which method you pursue. I wouldn't leave it that way on my car, but I don't think the body is gonna walk itself off either.

Take care, Neal