How in the heck do I fix this? No idea how it happened, the bolt felt fine going in, but I had to take it out to make an adjustment. When I took it out, metal pieces came with it. My only idea is to drill the hole out a little larger and rethread it to the next bigger size. Have any of you guys ever had to deal with this? Thanks!

 

Nobody knows?

 

Heli-Coil it.

 

Dont you need at least some threads left to use a heli-coil? I guess its worth a shot. I'll try it out, hopefully it works.

 

I'd like to hear what everyone else is doing also. When my crossmember stripped on my 89, i just welded a nut to piece of 3/16 plate steel and welded it to the crossmember

 

its really simple, get a 7/16 coarse tap. you can use the reccomended drill size ( 3/8 i think) or in this case you can just run the tap through the existing stripped hole, In this case it works out really good. I have don ethis to all of mine, they all gave up at the same time. Just don't forget some grade 8 7/16 coarse bolts.

 

Yep, that's what we do, very easy.

Steve

 

you are 100% correct, i just did this on sunday, i stripped the crossmember hole out while trying to get the spohn crossmember in, it didnt really go right up and i stripped it out. my friend had the heli-coil idea and he helped me do it. worked great!!

 

no you drill the hole a slight bit larger, tap it with new threads and thread in the heli-coil.

 

Awesome info guys. Thanks for the help!

 

i drilled it out to 1/2 in and taped it for a larger bolt, stronger i think

 

Same thing happened to me....I think it happens to everybody. I didnt even drill it out. I believe I just used a 7/16" tap to go over the threads and used a 7/16" Grade 8 bolt and washer from the hardware store. I also cut a 1" diameter hole in the side of the subframe so I had room to put a nut on back of the bolt, but I didnt end up needing it as the newly cut threads held good enough. The next time I have to remove the tranny crossmember I'll probably have put a nut on the back of it.