Rolled my new purchase into the garage, getting ready to separate body from frame. Got the four easy mounts in the front----> The remaining 6 have no access (or so it seems) from the top, or nut side of the bolt. I am thinking of taking a hole saw and opening up each top ,saving the cutout and tacking them back in after body goes back on. Is there a better way? One of six "hidden" mounts-----> Thanx all! JIM/Rott
I havent tried this but I would think theres a hole in the frame to get to the bolts. The factory had to put it together some how. Many here have done it. Im sure someone will join in soon.
All of your remaining body mount bolts have caged nuts on top with no access. You remove the bolts from underneath. That bump you see in the floor is where they are located. If the car is rusty I have found it helpful to drill a small hole in the top of the bumps and soak them with some WD40 or similar before trying to remove them. This only helps a small percentage of the time but it's always worth a shot. In the majority of the cases the bolt is actually rusty to the point of being hourglass shaped and will break before you get it loose from the nut. At any rate, if you spin any of them then you'll have to cut a hole in the floor and get the caged nut out by drilling out the spotwelds on one side of the cage, fold it up and get the nut out, then get the broken bolt out and weld it back in and weld the floor back up. It's not as bad as it sounds but it's a nuisance to have to do it. Good luck. The floor on your car looks pretty clean so you might get lucky and get them all out.
That's a good ideal about drilling a hole and soaking the nut. I'm going to put new mounts in my 72 Skylark so I will try that before removing the bolt. And yes all the bolts go up from the inside of the frame. There are usually big holes there to get the socket on the bolt head.
I got a different body car, but it sounds like GM used the same caged nut trick on yours as was on mine. I had one that gave me trouble coming out and what it required was me pushing or pulling to one side for the nut to find something to back against, the other side was bent/worn/rounded or something so the nut would just spin trying to pull it straight out. This is what the bolts looked like coming out. This one was the worse and this car was from southern California! And this was my problem child one I had to pull towards the front of the car so the backing nut would push against something to lock it.
Yeah all mine came out except for the one by the drivers seat,I should have drilled the hole and wd40 them before I started.but I didn't and broke that one free from the cage nut.you can use a hole saw and cut a nice hole above them and just put a rubber plug from the top.plenty of access from the bottom.
Yes if you can soak them somehow I'd do that, also remember to rap on the bolt head nice and solidly with a hammer and junk bolt or drift to try to break that corrosion free around the threads before you put torque to it. I will have a similar repair to do on my 64 special for the bottom-back front fender bolts. Somebody ripped out the captured nut plate on the passenger side such that there is nothing, and on driver's side the fender bolt is still there (that time they sacrificed the fender's bracket) but the bolt spins free so the nut is still on there but not captured enough anymore. That should be a fun project.
Well, I`m gonna head out to the garage tonight when the sun drops, and drill some small holes in the center of each raised bump where the mounts are located. I`ll soak the top of the nut w/ PB Blaster and hit em all tommorow with a 6-point 5/8" impact socket and gun em off. Then it`s pop the e-brake away from the frame and jack her up! 12 mounts total-6 "hidden" Wish me luck. Gonna hedge my bet abit and pick up a hole saw to drill holes if need be , if things get ugly. JIM/Rott
There is one other thing to take into consideration. Some of the bolts are longer then others so make sure you put the right length back in the same holes or you will be doing some extra patching. Duane
