Rad body mount bolts

Howdy all, this is my first post in Tacomaworld.

I wanted to replace the rad body mount bushings on my 2019 Tacoma with 72k on it. It gives a pretty terrible metal on metal sound on the driver side. I planned on putting in the energy suspension polyurethane bushings.

Once I pulled off the bumper I noticed the bolts looked warped. Anyone have this issue and did you replace them?

 

Have you owned that truck since new? Looks like someone was there before fixing accident damage. The zinc bolts on the side have socket marks on them as well.

 

No I bought it one year ago. Looked like someone used zip ties to hold up a part of the bumper as well

 

If you have room from underneath you might be able to slide a cheater bar over the bottom and straighten it up a little to see if you can get the nut to come off.

 

Might want to rethink the energy poly bushings. I went that route and had nothing but squeaks, even tried greasing them, superlube etc would help for a while but they would resume squeaking soon. Bought new factory rubber bushings and no more squeaks

 

i’m thinking that that bolt is actually sheared

 

Looking at it closer, you’re probably right.

 

Gotta take it apart to see what you're dealing with

 

Not really sure, but the sheet metal looks intact. That bolt is spaghetti

 

I decided to buy new bolts from the dealer to replace them. I'll upload a picture once I finally have it off of there.

 

Hmm I'll try them out for a bit and see. Hopefully they're not too noisy. Nothing is worse than the horrible metal on metal noise I'm getting right now though

 

I wonder if the fender apron is rubbing through the bolt

 

I managed to get the bolt off. I tried straightening it with a hammer for a bit but ultimately used an oscillator to cut through it.

The bushing it totally toast. Now I can't get the new bolt to line up correctly from the body to the new bushing to the frame. I've tried prying it but I can't seem to get it to line up. Any more ideas?

For reference the bolt on the passenger side is also slanted. It feels like the whole thing is lined up crooked

 

Has the vehicle ever been Ina front end accident?

Take pic of the hood hinge bolts, curious if they've been removed or not

 

It's been in a front end accident before (1st owner) carfax called it minor.

Here a picture of the hinge bolts. Or at least what I think you're talking about

 

Looks like they've never been touched

Hmm.. strange those apron bolts don't line up

 

Assuming that the frame or body are not bent, this is fixable. But it can also become one of those 30 minute jobs that will take two days without a lift. Here is how I would approach it, based on bent and misaligned body issues in other vehicles where I didn't have a lift. Keep in mind I have not crawled under your truck to assess the situation.

Things I think you will need:

• A tapered round chisel. This needs to be at least 8 inches long, 10 to 12 inches also work. The pointy end needs to be about 3/8 inch. It needs to taper upward to about 12 mm, which is going to be close to the bed bolt hole diameter. I call this an aligning pin because that is all I really ever use it for. I have aligning pins in several lengths and tapers.
  
• A couple of large C clamps, at least 6 or 8 inches. You will need one or more to hold the body to the frame in alignment once you have used the pin.
  
• Some sort of jack in case you can't crawl under the truck comfortably.
• Jack stands to hold the truck up safely.
• A set of 1/2 inch drive sockets and some combination wrenches, but it looks like you are well set with that kind of stuff.
  
• Replacements for the bent bolts, nuts and rubber bushings.

1. Take the truck into one of those coin-op high pressure wand car wash places and clean off the underside as much as you can. You do not want bits of dirt falling down and landing in your face. Don't ask how I know. . .(If you have a pressure washer, that will also work.)
   
2. Park the truck in a level spot on a hard surface (if you have a hard surface) where you can crawl underneath comfortably. You will be doing a lot of crawling.
3. If need be, jack the truck up to make access easier, but be sure that it is resting evenly on jack stands under the frame. Alternately, lift it so the tires are sitting safely on some wide sheets of thick wood, such as plywood. Don't use concrete blocks-they give way suddenly. The key here is that the body and frame need to be evenly at rest with one another.
   
4. Loosen the nuts on all of the bolts that fasten that part of the body to the frame. You should not need to remove the nuts. Just get them really loose so the bolts will flop up and down a little.
   
5. Remove the other bent bolt.
   
6. Make sure that the body is loose enough on the mounts that it will move around a little.
7. Shove the aligning pin into the bolt hole between the body and frame and wrestle with it until it goes in as far as you can get it.
8. Clamp the body mount to the frame with a C clamp.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 on the other side.
10. Remove aligning pin (if you have not done so) and drop a replacement bolt (with bushings, etc.) into the hopefully-aligned hole. Do the same on the other side.
11. Step 10 may require some wrestling. I have had to use a soft blow hammer from time to time.
12. If all worked through step 11, install the rest of the bushings & washers and then torque to specs.

Big-time edit because I misread the post at first and thought it had to do with bolts for bed mounting. If I left any references to bed mounting bolts, pls just ignore them.

 

Wow, awesome step by step thank you! I'll hopefully get around to trying it out tomorrow

 

Good luck!