dilljeepo

The nut on the other side is boxed in and is only tack welded onto the frame, what happened is probably that the weld broke and the nut is just spinning inside its welded little box. I got some leaf springs off a guy parting out his cherokee, he broke both of them and had to cut a hole in the metal where the nuts are so he could hold them still while he ratcheted off the bolt from the outside.

bigvig

I appreciate that. Im thinking (HOPING) thats whats happened. Not sure how Im going to actually attack it until I do, but Im sure we'll go a few rounds, no doubt.

I know for a fact that the bolt is seized in the bushing because the sleeve is spinning free when I try to turn the bolt. Plus it doesnt make sense to me that I got the bolt out that far then all of the sudden it caught and snapped the welded nut.

She get cut up tomorrow. Ill post the results and hopefully a how to and how dont.

dill: we posted at the same time. I HOPE it didnt snap the nut, but it might have. If that did happen, then I am in a world of hurt. I know how to fit it, its just not always that easy when you work from home (and are months behind), have a 3 1/2 year old and dont have all the tools you need.

dilljeepo

Oh I didn't read enough, I thought you didn't get any of the bolt out and that it was spinning freely. probably stuck in the bushing then, not tack welded nut. But I hear that they break a lot (kinda a really stupid setup)

_StationWagon_

Not stupid, practical. After all, why on earth would anyone ever have a need to change the springs on a Jeep?




(sarcasm, lol)

The JRod

By God I'm probably gunna have to do this very soon & everything is rusted on mine! Not cool @ all!

4x4cherokeexj

Just take your time... use lots of wd40 although I never did and never broke anything although. I don't have the rust problem...

dilljeepo

Practical ya lol best idea Jeep has ever had- find a nut on a major component and weld it into its own little metal box to keep it "safe"

smokerkenny

i swapped out my leaves w/ some lift leaves from the jy. i started w/ several weeks of pb blaster, & just let it soak in. i was able to do the swap fairly easy, but i didn't have to deal w/ the road salt issue.

Slick761

Lmao

bigvig

Update:

So Im in Maine and my Jeeps been here since I bought her in June 2002. So 9 years of winters to build up some rust is a LONG time, especially with the way the idiots at Chrysler did the leafs. What a joke!!!!!!!

So anyway, Ive got like every tool known to man EXCEPT big tools. Ive got a sawzall and portable band saw, but I dont have a torch, plasma or impact. My cutoff crapped the bed and was of no help but would have been HUGE! If you dont own one, BUY ONE BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS!

Here is what I did:

A month leading up to doing this I hit every spot with PB Blaster. I did it every day for a week, every other day for a week, then once or twice a week for 3 weeks. While she was sitting on the ground, I broke every bolt free to make sure they werent froze. They all broke fairly easily with a breaker bar and I got all of them out 1/16th to 1/8th. Then I lifted the passenger side (I dont like putting the whole thing up in the air at once in my driveway alone). I took off the rear shackle and then did the u-bolts. Everything went SUPER easy until I started the front bolt. About 3/8th's out it froze. It seemed like it MIGHT have been out of the nut and froze in the bushing sleeve because I had a pipe on it in the wheel well and when Id push down, it would spring back up. It felt like it was twisting the sleeve in the bushing. Eventually I snapped something and the bolt was turning.....but not coming out. Upon further inspection it was, in fact, froze in the sleeve and the sleeve had broken free of the bushing. So, either the bolt was out of the nut or the nut broke.

Portable band saw couldnt get in tight enough and I busted my only 2 nice metal sawzall blades. Soooo..... I ended up taking the leaf apart until only the top leaf was there and then I cut through it with the bandsaw (there was still a little pressure in the rear because the spring was pinched against the leaf box). So then I was down to just the leaf eye, with the bushing in it. A buddy then showed up and saw what was going on and offered to loan me his compressor and cutt-off. GREAT! I cut the eye apart and cut into the bushing (NOTE: DO NOT CUT THE BUSHING WITH A HIGH SPEED CUTTER!!!!!!!!!!). It not only stunk and threw super hot liquid rubber all over my arms, but somehow it made its way into the house. For the past 2 days now we've been finding it EVERYWHERE! My 3 1/2 year old has it on him every 5 minutes somehow. So dont use a cutoff wheel to cut threw it. I used a box cutter and it worked fine. Took a few minutes.

Anyway..... then I had just the bolt and sleeve. LUCKILY the sleeve was a pinch sleeve and NOT a solid sleeve and I could see into it. The bolt itself had snapped about an inch from the welded nut. NICE! So I cut the bolt head with the sawzall and the sleeve near the break and that was out of the way. I now had the broken bolt exposed. I sprayed it with PB blaster and let it sit for 30 mins. Then I did it again. Then I used a pipe wrench and started turning the bolt. IT IS COMING!!!!!!!!!!! Then SNAP! The welded nut broke.

I used the pneumatic cutter and opened up the bottom of the box that the nut is behind. Here is the hard part:

After opening up the bottom of that box I put a wrench on the nut. I used a pipe to brace the wrench and then cut off the remainder of the bolt that went through the bushing but there was still too much bolt sticking through the back of the nut to pull it out. There is a hole in the frame there for the nut to extend through. But, I WAS able to hammer a small flat prybar in between the frame and the back of that nut. Then I used the sawzall to cut off the remainder of that bolt. SHE'S OUT!!!!!!!!

I reassembled everything today in about 15 minutes, honestly. I had brand new nuts & bolts for the leafs. Brand new leafs with brand new bushings. Brand new u-bolts & nuts. I also took the plate for the u-bolts and sanded it really well and painted it with RustOleum. The toughest part today was getting everything to line up alone. If youre alone and doing it this way, its NOT easy. I needed pony clamp (2') and a come-a-long. The pony was used to push the swaybar down so I could get the u-bolts up through its bracket and the come-a-long was used to pull the axle forward into place for the leaf to sit correctly (actually didnt use it, my wife came out and helped while I forced the axle forward, but if youre along the come-a-long would help a TON!!!!)

I also broke both of the upper shock bolts when trying to take the shock off. They had also been sprayed with a TON of PB Blaster.

So, this isnt a small job if you run into trouble. I was HOPING that my sawzall and angle grinder would be enough if I ran into trouble but since my angle grinder died I was out of luck. If you start breaking things, this goes from a few hours to a few days depending on how long you can work on it at a time. I havent done the drivers side yet, but Ive probably got 12-15 hours in the passenger side. With what I went through, what I know now and my buddies compressor set up, I bet the drivers side doesnt take more than a few hours even everything breaks.

waltermitty

Hi Big,

Sorry to hear of your troubles. There is a torch DIY plumbers use called mapp gas. It's just a regular propane torch on steroids and provides a much hotter flame. they are available at Home depot/ Lowe's and are reasonably priced. Doesn't work as well as a real torch but can get you by in a pinch.

The job really isn't all that bad if you take your time and think it through. You may have it done by now and just wanted to throw in my 2 cents FWIW. Best of luck with it mate.

Tim

bigvig

I appreciate it.

Yeah, its all pretty much done now. I did the other leaf and went at it knowing what might happen. So what I did was this:

Lifted her, took off the tire and shock (bolts snapped again) and then took off the sway bar and u-bolts. THEN I went around to the floor jack under the pumpkin and let it down slowly until the leaf popped free. I TRIED doing the front bolt but in 3 minutes was in the same place as the other one SO I went to the shackle bolt and took that out. No problems there.

Then, since the leaf was free of all tension, I used the pneumatic and went through the bottom of the front "curl" in the leaf. Spun it over and cut through it again and had the spring off. I cut through the bushing with a box cutter and then saw what was happening (and HAD happened to the other side, I know it now).

The bolt had in fact broken free of the nut no problem. BUT THEN seized up in the sleeve of the bushing. Had I kept turning it, it would have broken the bolt because the sleeve was jamming on the box/bracket itself. This is what must of happened to the other one. So I just split the sleeve open with a chisel and backed the bolt out until it was free of the nut.

At this point I used the sawzall and cut the bolt and dropped it in two pieces. All in all, about 1 hour to this point. HUGE difference from the days without the cutoff.

So anyway, I think Im going to open up the bottom of the plate/box at the frame just because I did on the other side and found a bunch of s**t in there and I can clean it, paint it and put a new nut in. Going to do that tomorrow.

So really, considering how long these were on here and in Maine with the ocean salt, road salt (6 months of it) plus all the water and snow, the bolts were in fact trying to come out of the nuts, they just seized in the sleeve. Best bet on this is cut away the leaf and bushing so you can get at the sleeve itself.

Thanks again to everyone for the help in this thread and another Ive posted in. Its been really appreciated and Im going to do a write up with pics for the site I hope. Im sure someone else could use this info.

blinkbears

I'm thinkin about tackling this job to install some shackles to raise up my rear end and I have tons of rust. Every single thread I read on this including yours has me scared out of my mind to do it. I get frustrated easily and I know this won't be fun. COngrats on getting one side done.

I just did a lot of work on my fornt end and I don't have a torch. I second the recommendation of MAPP gas. I used it on the front and it made everything go just a little bit smoother. It's not that expensive. Well worth picking it up just to have.

bigvig

Well, like I said, my bolts were coming free of the nuts, that wasnt the issue like others have had. My issue was the bolts freezing in the sleeve, then the sleeve pushing against the bracket and snapping the bolts. If youve got an angle grinder, chisels, hammer, prybar, etc., you SHOULD be fine. If my angle grinder hadnt of died on me, I wouldnt of been as bad off as I was. If youve got a compressor and cutoff, youll be MORE than all set.

If you need ANY help, drop me a PM. Id be more than happy to walk you through exactly what I did. And doing one side at a time REALLY taught me how to do the other side VERY fast. 2 days invested in the first side, 2 hours in the second. All in all, if youve got the right tools and run into the WORST case scenario (all four welded nuts breaking), youre looking at probably 6 continuous hours and 2-3 cutting wheels.

blinkbears

Well I do indeed have all of those tools. Now I'm just a little bit less scared ha. Thanks for the offer. Expect a PM from me one of these days