I need your help

"Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap" (ddadragon) 05/25/2017 at 17:55 • Filed to: None

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What do you do if you break off a captive nut and can’t get to the back of it.

Thought I just stripped it but the welds broke off and it’s boxed in. So i think I’m kinda screwed.

crowmolly > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 05/25/2017 at 17:59

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So you are flying completely blind? What vehicle/bolt location?

benjrblant > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 05/25/2017 at 18:03

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Is it load-bearing? Could it be replaced with a rivnut? Alternatively, cut out this portion of metal, weld a nut to some flatbar, then weld the flatbar back in place?

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > benjrblant 05/25/2017 at 18:04

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It’s for the driver seat. Nut is in the seat crossmember. Rivnut could work but I don’t know if they come in the right size.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > crowmolly 05/25/2017 at 18:05

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It’s in the seat crossmember. And of course it was the last one as I had gotten the rest of the interior back together.

crowmolly > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 05/25/2017 at 18:08

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Can you post a pic?

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > crowmolly 05/25/2017 at 18:17

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At this point it’s under carpet so not yet. I think I’m going to have to cut my my beautiful rust free truck.

crowmolly > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 05/25/2017 at 18:20

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I’m just trying to figure out if you have to start cutting or maybe you can cut the head off of a bolt, etc.

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > crowmolly 05/25/2017 at 18:25

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I know I’ll have to cut the bolt and I’m ok with that. There’s just no way to get anything on the other side without cutting a small hole

crowmolly > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 05/25/2017 at 18:27

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Can you turn the bolt into a stud? Cut off the top, clean the threads, and use a nut up top?

Die-Trying > Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap 05/25/2017 at 21:40

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can you put the head of the bolt in a bind, and thread it out(put a screwdriver under it, and pry up on it while turning it). or maybe even shove an icepick, or a scratch awl down the hole to put the nut in a bind?.....

Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap > Die-Trying 05/25/2017 at 21:53

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Don’t think so.

sn4cktimes > crowmolly 05/25/2017 at 22:53

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Note: idea 3 might be my greatest idea ignoring the week

This was going to be my suggestion too. Use locktight on the stud to captive nut and then JB weld to get the nut-stud to stick to the body and hopefully it’ll be good enough to tighten the “top” nut against.

Or don’t cut the bolt and only carefully apply JB weld to the nut and pull up on the bolt once threaded to stick the nut up. But I’d say that would be more likely to fail / get the bolt stuck.

And both scenarios are a one shot attempt. And if it fails you’re pretty boned.

Oooo third option! But this is REALLY reaching and involves a welder. Preferably TIG. It would be the strongest though. Ok, so you need to drill tiny holes AROUND the main hole, maybe 5-7. Tiny. Maybe 1/8th ish. Then use a crappy bolt to thread into the nut. Pull it up and make tiny little plug welds through those holes into the nut. Voila! Rewelded! Remove sacrificial bolt and act like nothing happened.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > sn4cktimes 05/26/2017 at 04:40

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If you’ve got a welder then there’s no problem cutting out the nut and welding in a new section, although I do like the ‘repair the spot welds’ idea. The only reason I say cut and replace is that the bolt got stuck in the old nut the first time, so a fresh nut would be a good idea :)

sn4cktimes > sn4cktimes 05/26/2017 at 06:12

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That’s quite the broken English in my post... I typed it out on the potato keyboard. Sorry for that.

*Huff*. (Unable to edit, feeling dumb).