3rd Gen skid plate bolt stripped?

What's up Tacoma world?

I have a delema. I went to change my front diff and transfer case today. As I went to remove the bolts from the cross member attaching my RCI front skid plate, the bolts wouldn't come loose. I reached up inside (barley) and sure enough the nuts that are supposed to be welded, are no longer welded and moving freely. SO, I've tried putting a 13mm wrench, socket, joint with a socket etc... and nothing can seem to get a grip of the nut on the inside of the cross member.

Has anyone experienced this? It certainly was not like this the last time I went to the dealership for my scheduled maintenance. Seems off to me.

At any rate, see the photos. I cannot for the life of me find another easier way into the area where I can get ahold of the nut. Theres about 3 access point but all are at awkward angles to the point where I can't seem to fit the right tool in there. Maybe there's a flexible wrench I don't know about? Who know, grateful for any suggestion ya'll may have.

 

I’m not really following what went wrong that prevents you from taking the bolt off with a wrench as usual.

The dealer removed the plate last? Meaning they stripped or cross threaded the bolt?

 

It happens enough where it’s not unusual. The nuts are held on in the crossmember by small spot welds and they will fail if the weld was missed or the bolt gets over torqued.

Easy enough to correct though. If the bolt isn’t seized or cross threaded, sometimes you just need to put a little tension on the nut. You can try wedging a screwdriver or prybar between the skid and the crossmember and that could provide enough friction to get the bolt out. You could also try wedging the screwdriver into the crossmember and directly jolting the nut.

I’ve fixed these by drilling out the hole a little bigger and welding in an inverted shoulder nut in the hole. The shoulder keeps the nut from just falling in the crossmember.

 

I think he is referring to the "receiving nut" on the topside of the crossbeams that the skid plate bolts need. Soldered on at some point in manufacture, this one now has nothing to hold it in place so the skid-plate bolt can thread itself free.

 

Find someone with a stick welder. Bend the rod to fit in the space and re-tack the nut to the inside of the crossmember.

 

Yes I have! The easy solution is putting a riv nut in there. @Shveet taught me this so he can explain better.

 

@RichochetRabbit Exactly!

You are all correct and thank you SO much for the advice. This is incredibly helpful. I'm curious to see what @Shveet has to say about this "riv nut" situation. I appreciate all of your guys help. Thought I was doomed for a minute there.

 

Yup, same thing happened to mine. Like others have done I installed stainless rivnuts .

 

Sounds like some yayhoo used an impact wrench and screwed up a simple install. Guess some people weren't in line when they passed out the common sense. Another reason to do as much of the maintenance on your truck yourself as possible.

 

How was the rivnut installed? How were you able to come in from the top with what I can see is no room?

Any additional advice or instruction is greatly appreciated.

 

well someone asked a valuable question and i'm the one to answer!
k so standard cross member,
these 2 nuts inside are simply tacked in with like maybe 2 tacks. enough that they dont spin


pretty sure this was one of the early steps of the cross member being made as it's not possibly otherwise to access them to "reweld".

Basically a "rivnut" or the greatest nut thing mankind has created (alternatively a nutsert) https://www.fastenal.ca/productFamily/Fasteners/Rivets/Rivet+Nuts/602457
Are meant to create a semi-permanent (you just drill them out if you dont need them) nut into a thing sheet of steel or panel.
how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkPhGIaPCVs

I had one nut snap off on me with my RCI plate, easiest way to get rid of them is to get your hands on a bolt that fits the nut, smack the shit out of it (i'm writing this at 2am so my filter is gone) until the tacks breaks and that's it.

get a rivnut+ tool (amazoom the tool, the anvils (usually in a combo) and grab yourself a set of various sizes of rivnuts. Personally i up sizes to an M6 but you can get an M8 if you deem it necessary (trust me, M6 is super good enough) oh and get the stainless version to help with preventing rust).


Simply drill those holes out a little larger to fid the entire (minus the head) of the rivnut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ4gF2tXRBE
Follow that guide if you dont want to buy a tool
or this for more explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugjPJJPv0ew



and yeah. that's it. drill out, spray some paint on it, Riv nut it, replace the bolt with something larger, and yeah....



Alternatively, Wing nuts work really well too, just gotta stick your finger in there to holt it in place

 

I'm thinking the only way you're getting that bolt with the tack nut out is to grind or drill the head off the bolt. This is assuming that you tried the method the previous person mentioned of wedging something between the skid and the crossmember to keep downward force on the tacked nut/ bolt combo but I'm thinking this is not going to work as the bolt must be stripped/cross-threaded in the nut to break it off. You'll still need to wedge something in there to drill the head or grind the head off to keep it steady. Then you can get a flexible magnet and get it out of the crossmember and the get a new bolt and some sort of riv nut previously mentioned.

 

Same thing happened to me. You can get a box wrench on there if you use one of the ones with a flexible head. Go in from the outboard side underneath the LCA bushing and use your other hand through a hole in the top of the cross member to feed the wrench onto the nut.

Going forward you can use a rivnut. I did for a while but it eventually pulled through. Right now I am using a nut on the flexible box wrench until a friend of mine who can weld is going to weld in new nuts.

 

Just a tip for anybody doing this. Anytime is good place just installed or after to removed when you go to install liberally coat the threads with anti seize compound.

 

what are you talking about?

You thread the bolt like normal, maybe like 3-4 turns so the threads catch. then strike the head of the bolt. pops the OEM nut right out



there is no way to fix the existing nut. it's to tight and too much bullshit to try and fix that. just get rid of it

you are actually better of fusing a wing nut than that factory bolt. at least with a wingnut you can somewhat hold it in place without fucking about with a box wrench.


otherwise, Rivnut reduces the bullshittery and dicking around by about 90% effort.
yeah it might pull through eventually, but hella lot easier to replace a riv nut that pulled through than a nut that might have loosened inside a tight space.
Besides. I've had RCI steel plates being held up by 4 bolts for years while crawling around rock and stone. those 2 cross member nuts just stop the mid plate from rattling around. so it's not exactly the most vital of parts to worry about

 

Thank you everyone! This was all incredibly helpful. Going to give er a go today. I'll report back with my outcome.

 

Unless I'm reading it wrong, it sounds like his tack welded nut is already loose with the probably cross-threaded bolt in it so he can't get the bolt/ untacked nut asy out. Am I missing something? If so, I apologize.

 

If you can't unthread the existing bolt, take it to a shop and liquify the bolt with a cutting torch. Had to do this recently with my 4Runner running boards. There was no collateral damage.

 

Found the passenger side bolt missing and found the weld nut, MIA this morning. Going to give this a try now.