Does anyone know how much material there is to work with inside the frame rail?

I figured I would ask if anyone knew first before I go and drill and tap it out larger. The worst part about it is its the two most rearward holes and they take the most abuse as I'm sure most of you know. If that won't leave enough strength I can always weld studs into the holes. Thoughts?

there is plenty of meat to drill and go bigger. a little bigger, dont go crazy. i think the size is 10mm 1.5, so next up i think would be 7/16?

Well of course after I put up this up I find several threads on the matter

I like the idea of welding in studs and not having to worry about it again but I guess I'll save that for once I get a crossmember mount tq arm. 7/16 sounds about right.

dont weld studs, its really a bad idea. just drill and retap

How so? I wouldn't alllow there to be any protruding weld since the crossmember is meant to sit flush with the subframe.

how would you do that then? and after you weld the stud, it looses all of its strength, and once you break it off, then what?

its better to just drill and tap, no reason to ever weld a stud in this spot.

better than welding the crossmember to the frame, seen that done before....

Counter sink and a grinder. But no reason to argue this since its doubtful I will go that route as they are not quite that bad.

But I definitely don't see me welding the crossmember to the frame....

what he is saying is that when you weld a stud, it loses its strength. visually you'll be fine, but the stud could break at anytime. Then your transmission drops. your driveline could pull out, car could flip etc.

eh, it would probably only fip if all that happen while your here speeding in reverse...., but yeah, it would make a mess

also for the OP, what the condition of the trans subframe? sometimes they can become badly rusted/rotten, and the captured nuts will break off inside the frame. some thing to be aware of. It doesnt seem like thats an issue for you though. And the trans bolts breaking off seem to be rather common.

There's really not any significant amount of material there.

Drilling and tapping isn't a reliable option. Works sometimes, goes terribly wrong others.

What that is, is a really cheeeeeeeep weeeenie little chinesium nut, retained by a flimsy sheet-metal cage. Not only the nut threads strip easy, but also, the little cage POS gives out and fails to retain the nut. And of course, the moment this is most likely to happen, is sometime between starting to drill the nut and finishing tapping it, thereby leaving you with GARBAGE you can't run ANY bolt up into.

Best fix is to take out the seat, peel back the carpet, and take about a 1½" hole saw to the floor right above it; do away with all that weenie typical factory one-time-use-only crap; and tack-weld a REAL nut right there, and fill the hole in the floor back up with a plastic hole plug or the like, so you can get back in there any time you need to in the future.

Well no issues with rotting its a very solid car. But since tapping it is pretty much all I can do at the present I guess I might as well just give that a shot first and if the nut breaks loose then so be it. The hole is already stripped so its not doing any good the way it is...

I wouldn't recommend trying to drill and tap that either. As Sofa pointed out, those aren't really nuts in there. Its more like a chunk of cheap steel that was tacked in place, drilled and tapped. When I ran into the same problem, I opened up the floor pan from inside the car like Sofa suggested. Only I didn't weld a nut in there, I welded in grade 8 bolts with washers. I don't remember the exact length of the bolts but they were 7/16" diameter fine thread. They don't stick past the bottom of the trans xmember and its so much easier for me to put a nut on the bolts with one hand while holding the trans and xmember in place with the other than it was to try and line everything up to stick a bolt through it and get it started into nuts I couldn't see.

I did this 3 years ago now and haven't had any problems. I could see welding a stud in there from the bottom being a problem, but a bolt through the xmember should be more than strong enough. The main forces the xmember sees is lifting, which is going to push it up against the subframes.

I know but im just trying to tell him no! haha

Well like I said I'll try drilling and tapping first. If it breaks loose then no big deal since it was effed up already. Welding a bolt in from the inside sounds like a good idea and I will probably do that when I tear the interior apart to weld in some subframe connectors. That way I only have to do this once.

Mine were stripped too. I just use a 7/16 self taping bolt and a impact gun. worked great. But probably better off drilling and heli coiling the holes