Originally Posted by 93allmotorcoupe

Well as promised here is my short How-To on how to fix this problem. There are probably a number of ways you can go about this, however after a few days of thinking about it we decided that this would be best for our situation. Our idea was to drill a circular hole through the bottom of the subframe. Other good suggestions which you might want to consider were to:

1. Use a powerful magnet to get the nut back in its original location.
-We thought this wouldve been way too tedios and time consuming

2. Cut a small notch towards the front just large enough to hold up a wrench with a new nut.
-This was a good idea, however the old nut would still be inside the subframe.

3. Cut an I shape in the bottom and bend the tabs down to open it up.
-Also a good idea, however this required more advanced cutting. The position of the car made this hard to do, and we also werent crazy about bending and rebending the soft sheetmetal of the subframe.

Now that we're through that, Ill show you what we did. We used a 2" hole saw bit to drill a hole up through the bottom of the subframe. This would allow us to make one very simple cut, allow us enough room to fix the problem, and also provide a very simple way to weld the are back shut. If youre doing this on your own, remember to wear safety goggles and some type of MechanxWear style gloves (which is why my hands are so clean in the pics ).






Sorry, no photos during the drilling but here are a few shots of the hole after the cut was made:





The hole you just made will have small,sharp shards of metal everywhere. You may want to smooth it out with a grinder before sticking your fingers through it. This is also why I mentioned to wear gloves. After cutting, the nut will fall out the bottom through the hole you just made, find it immediately! Here's what mine looked like:





You can see there is a flange with a threaded nut on the other side. When re-installing, the flange faces towards the back of the car and the nut faces towards the front. Or, in other words (and if youre working on a different area of the car with the same problem) the bolt goes through the flange first, and then gets threaded into the nut.

Now that youve seen the nut, Ill show you where it goes inside the subframe. Here are a few shots through the hole we made. They are very blurry, but you still get the idea.



You can see above the small slot that is supposed to hold this nut in place. Mine did not appear to be bent or in any way out of shape. The slot is big enough for the nut to go back through it easily, which obviously means that its big enough for it to fall out very easily. In my opinion, its a pretty bad design flaw, but back on topic...

Grab the nut with a couple of fingers, and again with the flange side going in first, reach it up through the hole and back into the slot where it belongs. It may take some time and finesse, but you'll get it in there. Once its in, be sure to slide it back and forth as if you were doing it with the arms on adjusting the Toe. Make sure there are no high spots or low spots, and if there are you may want to bend those back to normal. Mine seemed to be straight, so we didnt need to make any changes with it.

Here are photos of the nut back in the slot:





Once we are finished bolting everything back together and the car is driveable, we are taking it to a friend of mine's shop to get welded back shut. We dont have any welding experience or we would do it ourselves But please, DO NOT cut a hole like this if you are not planing on welding it once youre done. Water will get in there and your subframe will start to rust and corrode from the inside out. It is also a structural region of the car that needs to be supported properly. With a gaping hole in it, its not going to be as strong as it should be. Also be sure to cover the area with a good undercoating.