Bed removal help - Middle bolts spinning

Hey guys.

Stuck removing the bed. Front and rear are out, but the middle bolts loosened up and now they just spin. The front and rears had a method to hold the bolt steady while I removed the nut. The middle ones don't seem to have anything or any way to access the bolt head to keep it stead.

Suggestions?

Thanks.

 

Never taken a bed off but have taken apart lots of old junk. Is the bed loose now? If so, maybe you could jack up the rear to put some pressure on the heads of those middle bolts.

Other than that, might be easier to cut them.

 

Bed is loose and comes up about 1/2 of an inch, but is stuck on those middle bolts. I've got a thick wedge jammed in the gap to keep pressure while I loosen the bolts, but it's not enough pressure to keep them from spinning. I just keep thinking that there must be an access point somewhere to hold the bolt head. If not, I'm cutting in an hour!

 

Couldn't you just tack the heads in place then hit em with a chisel when you're done?

 

Grind the heads off. Get the bed off and see if you can get penetrating fluid in there and - At least you will be able to get a better purchase on the bolts.

 

No access to the heads, so it looks like I'm cutting. They definitely need to be replaced!

All done now. Cutting was the only thing that worked. Oh well.

 

How is your bed bolted on? Mine had 6 bolts. The front 4 thread into holes into mounts that are welded to the bed. The rear most bolts have special nuts that hit the side of the frame to stop spinning.

 

yeah sorry bud. you did the only thing you could do in this situation. next time, add a couple more tacks to the nuts in the bed.

 

Here is how it ended up for future visitors to this thread. I'll take some suggestions for the repair of the broken bolts in the middle section as described below.

1. Rear (bumper side)
These are tricky because only the nut is exposed and it sits inside the top of c-channel frame. These will probably be the most rusted of the 6 as they sit exposed and get blasted with salt from the rear tires.

Plus the nut is tapered at the end and leaves little room to bite. The worst is the fact that there is not enough room to get a socket on the nut and still fit a wrench underneath. I remembered I recently bought some square drive socket caps from Horrible Freight. Of course, a 3/4" box end wrench doesn't offer nearly enough leverage, so I grabbed a 3' piece of galvanized pipe and stuck it on the end of the wrench.

The top of the bolt is tucked down inside a pocket in the body of the bed and inaccessible until you fish it out with your fingers after you are done. You can see that there is a tab welded onto the top of the bolt keeping it from spinning more than about 90 degrees. Probably common, but it's the first time I've seen them.

2. Center Bolts: These were the ones that gave me the most trouble. I was able to get a good grip on them with my 2 foot breaker bar, but about half way out they popped and just started spinning. I realize now that the pop was the little tab welded on the bolt breaking free. The problem with the middle bolts is that they are not accessible at all. They are trapped within a cross member that is spot welded to the underside of the bed, so there is no way to get a wrench in there or fix the problem. I ended up cutting off the bolt heads with a side cutting tool. I haven't decided what to do about repairing the issue. Options are to not install the middle bolts or cut open the cross member and install new heads.

3 - Front bolts (near the cab)
These were the easiest. Good access and little rust. I broke them free with the breaker bar and then backed them out with my impact gun. The nuts for these are also inaccessible within another cross member. I'll never know unless I cut open that cross member. I'm guessing that I'll need to use a punch to align the body with the nut. Hopefully that will go smoothly.

I believe that this is what the middle ones were supposed to look like if I got them out without cutting.

 

Thanks, I am thinking about pulling my bed to clean up the frame. Very helpful. This sort of thing never goes 100 percent smoothly on a 20 year old vehicle.

 

What did you end up doing with the middle bolts? I need to take my bed off my 2001 and am worried this will happen

 

I ended up not securing them for now. Our eventual plan is to cut the top of the bed open and replace the nuts and then re-close and weld the seam back up. I have 4 of the 6 bolts in good and tight, so I just haven't really worried about it. I expect we'll do it before we install a spray-in bed liner.

 

Really great info here. Thanks for taking the time to come back, take pictures, and explain what you ran into.

 

Mine came off fairly easily. I used an impact with a long extension on the front 4, and a ratcheting box wrench on the back 2. I guess i just got lucky on the nuts not breaking loose? I can confirm that the front 4 bolts are all identical.

 

I hope mine are easy! I need to replace my leafs and u bolts and they are stuck so I have to cut them off. I'm worried bed bolts are going to do the same. I need to get to the frame to paint but am scared I'll break the bolts and be screwed. Do the 4 bolts keep it on there tight enough? My bed is already rhino lined so that might make things harder. thanks for the info guys! I love this site!

 

Bedliner does not affect removing the bed. The bolts come up through the bottom.

 

those bolts are tack welded in place but over time the welds rust off. the best way to get at them is
to cut through the bed with a hole saw. you can then weld back in or buy a round rubber plug to fit the hole.

 

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but great info! I'm about to take my bed off to repaint the frame and do suspension while it's easy access. Only attempted the rear bolts so far before I left town for the week. One loosened up and the other is stuck. My bumper also protrudes through the bed sides as mounting points, so that should be interesting. Soaked everything in penetrating oil and will just hope that it goes easily. Might finally be time to buy an angle grinder

Did you ever tackle the internal nuts? I'd love to just replace everything with fresh shiny metal while I'm at it...

 

Nope! I can't bring myself to mess with it and we've had no problems with it so far. I have another opportunity to pull the bed again next week as we're going to repaint the truck again, so maybe I'll get after it this time. Probably not

 

Fair enough! Did the nuts on the middle bolts stay in place, or had they busted their welds when you were trying to get them off? I'm letting everything marinate in PB Blaster for a while before I start cranking on it I mean, if they held, they held! Sounds good to me too!