4 pt Brace Issues

[Hwy9FiST]

One of my bolts on my 4 pt brace is stripped/broken. It is on the drivers side rear bolt on the Pierce 4 Pt.

I had them over torqued at first. So I loosened them, then re torqued to the specs I found off this site (from dave). While torquing down the rear driver side bolt, it broke loose and spun around. The bolt isn't stripped... It feels like whatever the bolt is going into is broken and it's clunking while spinning around.

I took my car on a hard drive and everything seems OK. Nothing feels loose and there isn't any noise. (When I had them over torqued there was lots of creaking)

I guess my question is... how bad is this? I know I need this fixed if I ever want to take it off to service or upgrade

But does this need to get fixed asap? I would think so...

What needs to be done in order for this to be fixed? How screwed am I?

 

[eleven]

Same thing here. I apparently cross-threaded/galled the body-side when tightening that bolt. It locates the K member to the unibody. I could get roughly 3-4 threads before the bolt would bind. I used a 3 washers to take up the space and torqued it down and it spun on me much like you are saying yours has. It's currently torqued to 50% of what it should be. 5k miles since and no issues...yet.

 

[Evotech8]

After removing the bolt use a flashlight and look up there.
If the bolt spins and clunks it sounds like u might of broke off the retainer nut on the k-member frame.
If just the threads are mangled try a using a 14MMx2.0 tap with some cutting oil.
As mentioned, do not over torque or mis-align these bolts when putting them in. The frame hole thread is easy to damage on the back two holes. Use some antisieze too.

 

[westcoaST]

You can remove or drill out the captive nut, drill out/tap the hole and install a rivnut or a keensert that will get you back to where you were before the bolt broke the capture nut. I broke a bolt on my Mustang where the seat bolts down to the bracket, then I broke an easy-out in the drilled hole, so I removed the carpet, drilled out the captive nut, and installed a keensert, and was able to get the seat bolt to hold down my driver side Corbeau racing seat.

 

[Hwy9FiST]

Its sounds like I broke off the retainer nut. I cannot take the bolt out anymore.

How shitty is it going to be to have that fixed?

 

[westcoaST]

You should be able to grab the captive nut by dropping the k member, then grab the nut from topside. Or you can ignore it. I'm too OCC to do that.