Ok here goes. I've done some research on here and I'm not liking the outcome of what I've found. Anyways on to my problem. I was hearing some noise from the passenger side rear suspension for the last few months and finally got a chance to check it out tonight. The car is an EK with a rear disc conversion on it done by the previous owner. Turns out the noise is a loose trailing arm bolt. It's one of the two bolts that bolt in upwards (vertically) into the chassis of the car. Turns out the previous owner over-tightened the bolt breaking off the welded nut on the inside of the frame rail. Now the bolt is not tight enough or removable.

What I think I'm going to have to do is remove the rear seats, carpet, etc.. and cut a section out of the floor to get to the nut inside the car? Any good way of locating that area? Am I going to have to remove alot of material to get down there? What about dimensions of the shape to cut? Will this ruin the structural integrity of that corner of the car if I do so? I will get it patched and welded back together by a professional welder.

Any comments, opinions, tips, tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

I'm sorry to hear that, the exact same thing happen to me a good long time ago on an EK i had also, here is what we did and it was not too bad but is better left to professionals, i don't know your level of skill or what tools you have access too so I'm not trying to insult you by saying that. At the time i worked a performance shop that did hardcore fab work so this was nothing for my boss to fix, what he did was:

-cut 3 slits on the under side of the framerail and peeled back the metal to gain access to the bolt, from there removal was simple
-after that he installed new nut, cant remember exactly but it was something special that digs into the metal so it wont come loose
-after that we were going to bend the metal back and weld it all up but i decided to leave it open just incase it happend again, plus i didnt feel safe welding so close to the fuel tank

just try co cut a hole as small as possible, if i can find an old pic i will post it.