BigAl.inSalford
New Member
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- 6
Just thought I would share a little job myself and my buddy did last week as it may come in handy for someone.
A lad I know that likes to diy repair his cars got himself into a right pickle when he snapped three out of the six bolts that hold his rear arms to the body on his e46 estate.
Well the first advice I gave his was the obviously to drill them out
After an hour or so he came back to me with...... "I've snapped a cobalt drill in one and now every drill that goes in after that is getting dulled and blunt when it hits the snapped drill"
"Do you think you could come and have a look" well when I looked at the job he had made a right mess, the bolts were snapped off alright! There was no way to weld anything to the stud as it was bellow the bracket for the arm so I told him the bad news......
"You've ****** that right up haven't you!". After a while of thinking about how to rescue this car from the scrap yard my pal and me came to the agreement that going in from the top was the only way.
So after work we managed to get the car into work and set on it. Removing the back seats, side trims and sound deadening around the areas locally we had to wheel out the plasma.
Two holes were needed to be cut at the side of the seat base where the loom runs to gain access to the tops of the bolts where they came through the chassis. Now care must be taken doing this as its about two inches from the fuel tank (diesel in this case) if it was petrol I think we would have had to drop the tank just to be on the safe side!
Once the holes had been cut in the job was to weld nuts to the other side of the studs plenty of oil and penetrating fluid and win the ******s out. After the bolts were removed a quick run through with a tap to clean the threads and the new boots could be fitted(whit plenty of copper slip)
All that was left was to weld the holes back in place and bobs your fanny.
Being my first job with my plasma I was really impressed with it, I think an angle grinder would have made a right mess with sparks flying every where burning carpets, trim etc.... new steel would have had to be used to patch up and the risk of damage would have been greater. That's if you would have been able to get in with it! One of the holes was in a gap between the panel where the door frame is and the seat base, about the size of a box of swan vestas.
Hope this helps someone because apparently its a common thing for the bolts to snap.
Sorry for no photos, I will try to get them off the owner so you get an idea.
A lad I know that likes to diy repair his cars got himself into a right pickle when he snapped three out of the six bolts that hold his rear arms to the body on his e46 estate.
Well the first advice I gave his was the obviously to drill them out
After an hour or so he came back to me with...... "I've snapped a cobalt drill in one and now every drill that goes in after that is getting dulled and blunt when it hits the snapped drill"
"Do you think you could come and have a look" well when I looked at the job he had made a right mess, the bolts were snapped off alright! There was no way to weld anything to the stud as it was bellow the bracket for the arm so I told him the bad news......
"You've ****** that right up haven't you!". After a while of thinking about how to rescue this car from the scrap yard my pal and me came to the agreement that going in from the top was the only way.
So after work we managed to get the car into work and set on it. Removing the back seats, side trims and sound deadening around the areas locally we had to wheel out the plasma.
Two holes were needed to be cut at the side of the seat base where the loom runs to gain access to the tops of the bolts where they came through the chassis. Now care must be taken doing this as its about two inches from the fuel tank
(diesel in this case) if it was petrol I think we would have had to drop the tank just to be on the safe side!Once the holes had been cut in the job was to weld nuts to the other side of the studs plenty of oil and penetrating fluid and win the ******s out. After the bolts were removed a quick run through with a tap to clean the threads and the new boots could be fitted(whit plenty of copper slip)
All that was left was to weld the holes back in place and bobs your fanny.
Being my first job with my plasma I was really impressed with it, I think an angle grinder would have made a right mess with sparks flying every where burning carpets, trim etc.... new steel would have had to be used to patch up and the risk of damage would have been greater. That's if you would have been able to get in with it! One of the holes was in a gap between the panel where the door frame is and the seat base, about the size of a box of swan vestas.
Hope this helps someone because apparently its a common thing for the bolts to snap.
Sorry for no photos, I will try to get them off the owner so you get an idea.
