E30 Zone

I thought rather than sitting on here tonight I would actually get some work done to the chromie, was planning on dropping down the rear end.

Snag is, the poxy 6mm allen bolts that bolt through the bottom of the sill to the subframe retaining plates are seized solid.

I gave them a clean up with the wire brush and a lashing of WD40.

They were very rusty and I knew getting the allen key in there was going to be drama, so I made sure I hammered the allen key in to get a proper grip.

The bad news is that all 4 of them are solid and I have now managed to round off what little edges they had, so the allen key is just spinning now.

What do you think is the best solution now?

1- angle grinder with 1mm plasma disc and take off the head of each allen bolt - which is then going to leave me with the remains of the stud sat in the captive nuts on the sill or;

2- drill them from the off?

god damn rusty turd, not got the patience for this right now.

I would try drilling the heads off the little buggers, but you may find that they are really hard and end up with some blunt drills. Either technique you suggested will work. Once the heads are off you can just undo the big 22mm nut and the bracket will come away easily.

cut the captive nuts off dude. grinder out , job jobbed

obv new nuts and bolts required to reassemble but they are 8.8 grade so no issue there.

drilling is an option but a slow one

HTH

Thanks guys

are the captive nuts on the actual plates?

If so then this won't be so bad after all as I kept the plates off the touring, somewhere.......

yup, nuts on plates

either nut and bolt with decent nylocks or weld some M8 nuts on and crack on dude.

right, I'm off out to set fire to my hair with angle grinder sparks

Dan & Dezzy know how rough my angle grinder is too, VWF coming on

Got the passenger side one off with a combination of mutilating nuts & bolts from both sides.

Driver side a bit more awkward with the proximity of the fuel tank, managed to get the rearmost nut hacked off but made a mess of cutting the front one. But I've managed to bend the bracket down off the big subframe bolt/thread so that I can get the beam down. The fuel tank is coming out anyway, so once that is out the way I'll give it the good news.

What a waste of an evening though, 4 poxy bolts

I have some of the subframe bolts if you want new ones

I'd personally use stainless bolts next time. Should I hope be upto the job however these are great for anything that's rounded off.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Irwin-ViseGrip-Da ... 2c508d21a1

Saved me a few times now.

If I run into these there is no hesitation, the grinder is the only tool to consider, I cut the heads off the bolts as they are easier to get to, then when the plate is off its into the vice for some gas axe/mole grips action which usually saves the captive nuts