Got my new springs mounted up and sure enough, the front inside spring plate bolt hole in the housing kept turning, and turning, and turning. Schight. No I was not using the gun. :flipoff2:

I know it's been talked about 100 times, but my search came up ziltch. I know I can drill and tap. But what's been the best fix? I want to do this once and be done with it. I know I can cut down the short side too and mount the pass side perch on the tube but I want to stay full width and keep my wheels.

Help?? :(

I would try a heli-coil if you can get one in the correct thread. I have always had good luck using them and they are hella strong....

floppy a friend of mine ruined his dodge 60 trying to weld the holes up, drill and tap it... so DON'T do that! Basically he made it harder than fuckin hard.

He eventually wound up grinding on the housing a little bit, welding a couple small guides and making a custom u-bolt that went around the housing. It had only a few bends in it and I believe he made a new top plate. It's been holding up for a couple years now and the rig is the beautifull white URJB land cruiser that can be seen rolling very hard in 02's carnage for the con at donner ski ranch ;)

Heli-coil would be the hot set up.

i've drilled and tapped them before, cause I couldn;t get the right size helicoil at moments notice...

tapping is a slow proccess cause of the hardness, but with patience you can do it without breaking a tap, took me like 30 min per hole taking the tap in and out so much

I have always liked threaded inserts that use a normal thread rather than the special stuff you need for helicoil. You will end up with a tap that you can use again (or not have to buy a tap).

Instead of a helicpoil, there is a threaded insert (I forget what it is really called) that you drill the hole out, tap it w/ a standard tap, put the insert in, and then tap 4 wedges in to hold the insert. It is probalby the best bet for your situation.

I would just notch the webbing out and set it up to use a u-bolt. You will never have to worry about being out on the trail and strip it or break a bolt in it again.

Thanks for the imput doods. I really like the ubolt idea, but was looking at it again this morning and it does'nt look as bad as I thought. I would REALLY like to ditch the fuking bolts anyway. I'm heading down to Adams today so I'll see what he can hook me up with.

Thanks again buds. :D

Originally posted by JeepinIan
Instead of a helicpoil, there is a threaded insert (I forget what it is really called) that you drill the hole out, tap it w/ a standard tap, put the insert in, and then tap 4 wedges in to hold the insert. It is probalby the best bet for your situation.
That's called a Keensert. We use them all the time at work for threads in aluminum plate but they are also used as a thread repair. They use a normal tap for the hole to put the insert in, unlike helicoils.Keenserts (http://www.newmantools.com/kee.htm)

Along the lines of the keenserts. Drilling out the center of a larger bolt and tapping that works as a do it yourself thread-sert.

just weld 2 nuts right over the holes my brothers is done that way and its been beaten pretty bad with no problems, just kinda ghetto but in jam it works.

talk about ghetto fab:eek:

we use timeserts here at work for fixing stripped out sparkplug holes in the heads of bikes and atvs. prob about the same thing as a keenserts. i like the timeserts more than i do a helicoil, and i dont think helicoils will work unless you have the tool to put them in with.

i stripped a deck bolt on a small block chevy that is running 10.5:1 CR.

we helicoiled it and there was nothin to it. just be careful you dont snap the tap off in the hole... slow and easy . plenty of cutting fluid.