Sway bar missing bolt !!!!!

[NEWCHAPTER]

I discovered today that one of the bolts fell out of the sway bar and it was partially hanging down... I pulled the rest of the bolts out and discovered that one of the bolt holes is missing the threads. So how do I go about putting a new bolt in to hold the sway bar in place

 

[dougie]

There is (was, in your case) a captive nut up there inside the frame rail that apparently came loose, perhaps from rust. Maybe the same thing that caused the bolt to break. I had one of mine break loose when I was replacing the sway bar bushings. Luckily it was still up there and I could get a wrench on it thru a hole in the frame to hold it while I removed and replaced the mouting bolt.

If you can get your fingers up there to hold a nut, you can put one in and try to tighten. If you use a nut and one of those cerrated washers, it should hold as you tighten it. Good luck.

 

[NEWCHAPTER]

unfortunately its on the drivers side and i didnt see any holes like the other side, and i do believe the nut is gone because the bolt fell out and i also need to get a new one of those....i think what happened is that i had taken the sway bar bolts out to replace the intercooler and that bolt seemed to go in a little to easy so i must of knocked off that nut inside.... i was thinking about putting awhole mess of jb weld up there and then tap out the threads ?????

 

[dougie]

JB weld is good stuff, but that's a bad idea. It'll last till the first bump. You should check a Napa store or online for "blind nuts" You get them in the same size as the hole, and insert them. You put a bolt in it and tighten it and it expands on the inside and locks in place. then you remove the bolt and fasten the sway bar. You may need to change the sway bar bolt to match the thread size of the insert, but that's no biggie.

By the way, I once used JB Weld to seal a pinhole coolant leak on the machined surface of a cylinder head where the valve cover sits on a Triumph TR6. Worked great and didn't leak a drop the day I sold it 3 years later.