!?!?!?! Driver Rear Body Mount Bolt

[Red Hot Sloth]

Welp, I just got my Ace Engineering Rock Sliders back from powder coating last night so when I got home from work today I figured I had enough time to install them in my driveway before sunset.
Red lock-tite on front driver bolt, heated it with a torch, loosen, tighten, loosen, tighten, torch, loosen, tighten…took damn 30+ minutes to get it out. Mid driver side bolt, Milwaukee heat gun on high hear for about 7 minutes, comes out easy, no lock-tite on it. Driver rear bolt, Milwaukee heat gun high heat for 10 minutes, its tight, maybe a 16th of a turn before extreme resistance, heat gun 5 minutes and another 16th of a turn, heat gun 5 minutes, now an 8th of a turn, lets go the other way, 16th of a turn tighten and an 8th of a turn loosen, another 8th of a tuen loosen, back and forth like this for about 20 minutes and its out, hmmm, blue lock-tite.

I place my slider on a floor jack get it into position, loosely set middle bolt, loosely set front bolt, go to set rear bolt, theres nothing for it to grab onto. ?

I grab a flashlight, look up in there and nothing but open space.

Theres no where I get get a finger in/above to feel for anything.

When I installed these on my last Gladiator almost 4 years ago I dreaded the thought of a broken bolt but that didn't happen then nor now but it never crossed my mind that the threaded portion would have just been tacked into place.

@ShadowsPapa have you heard of this one yet? Any advice or insight would be super appreciated. TIA

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[ShadowsPapa]

i had the rear body bolts (ahead of rear axle) loose - they came loose actually quite easily without much fuss. I figured, ok, that was easy, go ahead and pull them out - and I wasn't able to. There was like a collar on them preventing them from dropping out of the bushing.
I liken it to the sort of piece that was used to hold GM brake drums and rotors on years ago. A toothed sort of washer that could be pushed on and locked onto the bolt but couldn't be removed without a socket to engage the teeth and unscrew it. I'm sure some old-timers have seen that sort of saw-toothed washer holding on brake drums and such. That's how it looked on mine.
I was never able to get the rear bolts clear out. They just hung there until I pushed them back up and threaded them in. I don't recall the threaded piece up above moving or turning or feeling loose.
Sorry, not much help.

Maybe if Benny at AllMOPARParts can look up the drawing for that area and see what parts are shown?

 

[kevman65]

There is a retainer type washer on each body bolt. There to prevent the bolt from falling out if they ever loosen up.

I used needle nose pliers to pull all of mine out. They were being a pain to get the bolt started into them.

There is a captured nut way up high, unless you're Sasquatch your fingers aren't long enough to feel them. There have been cases where that nut has "escaped" and just spins when you go to put bolt back in.

 

[Red Hot Sloth]

i had the rear body bolts (ahead of rear axle) loose - they came loose actually quite easily without much fuss. I figured, ok, that was easy, go ahead and pull them out - and I wasn't able to. There was like a collar on them preventing them from dropping out of the bushing.
I liken it to the sort of piece that was used to hold GM brake drums and rotors on years ago. A toothed sort of washer that could be pushed on and locked onto the bolt but couldn't be removed without a socket to engage the teeth and unscrew it. I'm sure some old-timers have seen that sort of saw-toothed washer holding on brake drums and such. That's how it looked on mine.
I was never able to get the rear bolts clear out. They just hung there until I pushed them back up and threaded them in. I don't recall the threaded piece up above moving or turning or feeling loose.
Sorry, not much help.

Funny thing, that weird saw toothed washer was on my front body mount bolt but not the middle or the rear. I used a cats paw to apply downward pressure while turning bolt counter clockwise to get the bolt out.
The middle bolt came out extremely easy compared to the front and the rear.
Im at the mechanic right now and they’re working to getting the rear bolt onto the “nut” that was essentially tacked into place. They used their camera to look up into the cavity and saw that the tack had broken loose. Fingers crossed they wont need to cut open floor pan from interior of my Gladiator to access it.
I’ll update when its taken care of.
Funny thing, that weird saw toothed washer was on my front body mount bolt but not the middle or the rear. I used a cats paw to apply downward pressure while turning bolt counter clockwise to get the bolt out.
The middle bolt came out extremely easy compared to the front and the rear.
Im at the mechanic right now and they’re working to getting the rear bolt onto the “nut” that was essentially tacked into place. They used their camera to look up into the cavity and saw that the tack had broken loose. Fingers crossed they wont need to cut open floor pan from interior of my Gladiator to access it.
I’ll update when its taken care of.[/QUOTE]

 

[ShadowsPapa]

There is a retainer type washer on each body bolt. There to prevent the bolt from falling out if they ever loosen up.

I used needle nose pliers to pull all of mine out. They were being a pain to get the bolt started into them.

There is a captured nut way up high, unless you're Sasquatch your fingers aren't long enough to feel them. There have been cases where that nut has "escaped" and just spins when you go to put bolt back in.

Apparently not on all of the body bolts on all of the Jeeps built. I didn't have them on the middle bolts as I recall, just the rears.
It's actually more a factory assembly thing like the other retainers used in various places.
That way when the body is set down on the frame, the proper bolts are already in place and ready to drive up into the body nuts. There's been a lot of that over the years - "captured bolts" or "captured nuts" for factory assembly.

 

[Red Hot Sloth]

I dont know how the technician and mechanics did it, but they were able to somehow get the “tacked-nut” into a position to allow the bolt to thread on bit am quite stoked…they didnt have to cut anything open and we have our 1st desert trip of the season uninterrupted. They had me on my way without much delay for the day. Made our way out to our local desert by 5pm. They did provide a warning that its going to be real bummer come rime to remove that slider and advised against it due the “tacked-nut” being, well..untacked.
Here’s a couple picks.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I don't know how those bolt on - the brackets in particular, but the power steps I have, the brackets are slotted so you only have to loosen the bolts, slip the brackets in between the bolt head and the big washer on the bolt, and tighten them back up.
But if that nut is free to spin, could be a problem even doing that.
I may get curious and see if there's a way to make a tool to get up in there to that nut, just for kicks and because I'm curious, now.

When I watch shows like Swamp People, and they have a disclaimer at the beginning that says "some images may be disturbing". I'm sure they mean the shot or mutilated gators, the rotten bait and so on - but I'd like to respond to them - yeah, them danged spider images ARE disturbing! Stop with the spider pics already LOL

 

[Red Hot Sloth]

I don't know how those bolt on - the brackets in particular, but the power steps I have, the brackets are slotted so you only have to loosen the bolts, slip the brackets in between the bolt head and the big washer on the bolt, and tighten them back up.
But if that nut is free to spin, could be a problem even doing that.
I may get curious and see if there's a way to make a tool to get up in there to that nut, just for kicks and because I'm curious, now.

If you make a tool that will get up there for this purpose….Im sold, I would be most appreciative of it and would love to have it in my tool-box. Please keep me in mind if you come up with something. ??

 

[cranbiz]

Good luck with making a tool.

When I call it a captured nut, it's because it's a term everyone can understand. It's not a traditional nut. It's a cone shaped retainer with threads which is part of a "washer" which is then tacked to the bottom pan (mine was 2 tacks). IMHO, the arrangement is poor and the washer is poorly secured.

If they had programmed the robot to do a 4 point tack on this washer, it would have gone a long way in keeping this from happening. Because I had to fix mine and I was never going to do this repair again, I ran 3 triangulated beads to secure the washer. It is not coming out.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Good luck with making a tool.

When I call it a captured nut, it's because it's a term everyone can understand. It's not a traditional nut. It's a cone shaped retainer with threads which is part of a "washer" which is then tacked to the bottom pan (mine was 2 tacks). IMHO, the arrangement is poor and the washer is poorly secured.

If they had programmed the robot to do a 4 point tack on this washer, it would have gone a long way in keeping this from happening. Because I had to fix mine and I was never going to do this repair again, I ran 3 triangulated beads to secure the washer. It is not coming out.

I did some poking around and found I'd still have to open up one of the holes in that area even to get a modified crows foot in there. My finger couldn't quite make it at any angle, and anything that would need to straddle a nut would have to be larger than the nut, so it still goes back to making a hole larger. But - from under the truck.
I'm in the middle of craziness with heart and other stuff now so am not up to getting under any vehicle, no up and down stuff.

 

[jmdwifi]

I had ace rock sliders on my first gladiator but I let a shop install them because of the broken bolt reports, They broke a bolt and had to order one. I am betting they use an impact on them. I am getting read to order a set for my current truck because I can't find anything else that works with the factory sliders plus looks as good. I will install these myself and heat the bolts up then take them off by hand. Wish me luck.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I had ace roll sliders on my first gladiator but I let a shop install them because of the broken bolt reports, They broke a bolt and had to order one. I am betting they use an impact on them. I am getting read to order a set for my current truck because I can't find anything else that works with the factory sliders plus looks as good. I will install these myself and heat the bolts up then take them off by hand. Wish me luck.

Even the factory docs say to use inductive heater on body mount bolts. Even then you can run into trouble. Mine came loose, then left front broke while tightening it. Obviously wasn't hot enough. Doesn't take an impact to break these.

 

[whiteglad]

I got the stock bolts off on two JT's by just smoothly turning with a long handled ratchet. I replaced with grade 12.9 Allen bolts and carefully picked the lengths so their shorter span of threads was where I needed them. I put high pressure chassis grease on the threads to avoid any future issues with residual loctite on the nuts. I also painted the bolts to minimize the chance of rusting.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I got the stock bolts off on two JT's by just smoothly turning with a long handled ratchet. I replaced with grade 12.9 Allen bolts and carefully picked the lengths so their shorter span of threads was where I needed them. I put high pressure chassis grease on the threads to avoid any future issues with residual loctite on the nuts. I also painted the bolts to minimize the chance of rusting.

I did our JLU and my 22 JT - and of the JT bolts, 3 went really smoothly, 2 not as smooth but ok, the 5th broke. I found out that of all of those who broke body bolts on these, it's almost always the left front of the 6 that need to come loose that breaks for others. The JLU was tricky but heat did the trick.

I broke mine with a 16" bar, really not much longer than my SnapOn half inch drive ratchet.
It didn't take much force at all to break it.
There's no turning these smoothly - just not going to happen. Like I said, mine broke just starting it back tight again.

 

[whiteglad]

I think that extreme heating of the bolts, torque to turn them against red loctite, etc. can weaken them enough that they can fail, as ShadowsPapa found. I don't try to reuse them, but replace them with grade 12.9 Allen heads and thick hardened washers. I choose the lengths and washer thicknesses so that they stay within the range of threads. These replacement bolts have shorter thread ranges than the stock bolts, so lengths are critical. The Rock Hard sliders have 3/8" thick flanges and I used these lengths and washers with the Allen bolts:
M12x1.75x100 with 0.11" thick gold-plated washer and 0.19" thick black washer in front, M12x1.75x120 with 2 gold and 1 black washer in the middle, and M12x1.75x220 with 1 gold and 1 black in the rear positions. I applied high pressure chassis grease for uniform torque applications and to prevent residual loctite from interfering. I got the bolts and washers from McMaster, except the thick black washers which came from Rock Hard. I did not use the grade 8.8 Rock Hard bolts as they would be weaker than the stock 10.9 bolts (110,000 psi, 150,000 psi, and 170,000 psi strengths for 8.8, 10.9, and 12.9 grades).

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