That's not gone well...

"MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig" (MR2_FTW) 03/26/2018 at 15:20 • Filed to: None

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It’s astounding how much pain and suffering one bolt can add to an otherwise simple task. In this case that job was removing control arms to install polyurethane bushings. However the little captive nut inside the chassis decided it didn’t like being captive any more and just spun with the bolt, requiring some exploratory surgery.

Now what could have taken an afternoon will take at least a week of evenings in the garage, ordering a new bolt, welding in a new nut, and welding the chassis back shut after. And this is on BOTH sides.

Noah - Now with more boost. > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig 03/26/2018 at 15:33

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The early spring pain and suffering club is no fun.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig 03/26/2018 at 15:34

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Yikes. I had a similar, though only a small fraction of the nuisance, when I replaced the door latch handle in my GMC Safari. There’s a nut on the back of the handle that’s very difficult to reach. So I chiseled a hole in the side of the door for access. Cake. Then covered it with several layers of heavy aluminum tape. You might want do do more than cover that with tape...

AkursedX > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig 03/26/2018 at 15:52

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Gotta love those captive nuts that decided to break free....Ugh.

Fieros had this same issue with the rear cradle mounting points. And it was resolved in a similar manner; cutting out the metal to get a hold of the nut and get everything freed.

TheRealBicycleBuck > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig 03/26/2018 at 16:54

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There’s probably a good reason not to do this, but I think I’d try d rilling a small hole through the frame and into the nut so I could pin it in place. Wouldn’t that be better than a bigger hole somewhere else?

merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/26/2018 at 17:28

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With the control arm in place, you would likely not have a decent way to get access to drill into the nut, but if you had access, that doesn’t sound like a bad option.

TheRealBicycleBuck > merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc 03/26/2018 at 17:41

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Excellent point. 

razorbeamteam > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig 03/26/2018 at 18:37

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Ohh buddy, thats a bad one.

I had a captive nut escapade this weekend. I broke the old one on the inside of my fender, and since its aluminum I couldn’t weld a new one on. I unbolted the fender then I used super glue to hold a new nut on. Luckily, it held long enough to thread the new bolt in but then un-captivated itself. Luckily I could pull up on the bolt enough to get some friction on the nut inside the fender, but it was a lil touch and go there.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > razorbeamteam 03/27/2018 at 08:15

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That REALLY sucks. At least I was able to weld a new nut in place.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > TheRealBicycleBuck 03/27/2018 at 08:19

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The captive “nut” ended up being a threaded square that was held in by a little cage type thing. I removed the cage and ground the welds down to make room, and put in a nut that looked kinda like this:

The flared bottom gave me a ton of weld-area so that crap shouldn’t be coming loose again.