Tighten up my SFB today and......

[ShoGuy93]

Ok i got under neith my sho today to tighten them up a bit to see if that would fix my noise i have in the front. When i hit bumbs and take turns and hit bumbs. Well most of them needed tighting. And my front drivers side one kind of worries me cause i went to tighting it. and it would like really never get tight, kind of like the screw was striped and it would make this god awfull sound when i turned it. But it would really never get tight. I bet this is part of my problem. What do u guys think it is? I am not really that familar with my suspension.

Thanks

 

[SHOZ123]

The nut is turning in the frame channel. Normally there is a little tab on the nut that catches on a raised piece in the frame channel. Your tab is toast.

PITA to replace.

 

[ShoGuy93]

I asume this will mess up my suspension tightness?

 

[SHOZ123]

Well they should be torqued to 85 lb/ft. If they can't be tightened you need to get a recall kit. Then hopefully you can get the bolt out. Use a magnet to get the nut out of the channel.

Then put the new nut in the channel and thread the bolt into it and it should catch and tighten up.

This is sounding a lot easiter than it is but if you work patiently you can get the nut in there with a couple of fingers and start the bolt.

The big problem may be getting the old bolt out.

 

[ShoGuy93]

well i am going to be getting a recall kit with my tpr group buy bushings. So i should be ok thanks for the info!

 

[projectSHO89]

Check to see if the rear SFB bolt recall has been done on your car. If it hasn't, get the local Ford store to do it. That will fix the nut problem and give you new bolts/hardware on the rear. Since you are in Indiana, you should be covered. The replacement of the nuts requires that a hole be drilled through the floorboard of the car, not an everyday job for the DIYer.

A free repair actually makes going to the stealership worthwhile.

Steve

<small>[ November 21, 2002, 08:08 AM: Message edited by: projectSHO89 ]</small>

 

[SHOZ123]

I see Ford's procedure for removing spinning subframe bolts is to cut the heads off of them.

 

[ShoGuy93]

I bet that would actually work pretty well! Less time.. and thats a key at a ford dealer ship!! thumbs_u

<small>[ November 22, 2002, 01:19 PM: Message edited by: ShoGuy93 ]</small>

 

[jthomas68]

If they were all signifigantly loose,you may want to loosen them back up and realign the subframe,assuming you didn`t when you just tightened them.I`ve had the same nut spinning problem when removing mine,and i was able to shove a very large screwdriver in the access hole to wedge against the nut so it wouldn`t spin.

 

[Mike Kopstain]

I had this happen on a customer's car. We ended up having to cut open the subframe, torch it off, weld a new bolt in, and then seal the subframe again. Not a fun thing to do.

 

[SHOZ123]

On my '93 I broke one of the front bolts. I would think this would be easier to fix than a spinning bolt and nut. You might be able to jam something in the subframe to keep the nut from spinning but this is a very tight area.

How about connecting a welder to the subframe and the bolt head? Maybe this would weld the nut to the subframe enough to bust the bolt loose.

 

[ShoGuy93]

The more people that reply to this it is sounding like it is goning to cost me more and more money to fix this darn bolt!! frown