bed tie downs

[noeld]

I took my bed liner out & when doing this I broke off all the tie down cleat bolts this has happened to me before & I didn't fix them vary well so here I am again so could anyone tell me the best thing to fix them (01 ranger)
thx noel

 

[rb142]

Wow! I can't imagine how you could break all the cleat bolts removing the bed liner. I've put some serious load on those cleats, and removed my liner several times, and none of that hurt the cleat bolts.

Anyway, without seeing it, the obvious answer would be to extract any remnants of broken bolts and put in a set of new bolts. Are the threads ripped out? Are you trying to get broken bolts out? Tell us more.

 

[noeld]

they just twisted off when removing (except for 3 ), was wondering if anyone had any tricks for getting um out
thx noel

 

[rb142]

Oh.

Well, by FAR the best way to get those out is to weld a nut onto what is left and turn them out. The heat/expansion breaks the corrosion bond and they usually come out pretty easily. Obviously that requires having a welder. Even just a few heat/cool cycles with a propane torch may help a lot.

Lacking that, start with lots of Kroil or some other good penetrating oil and let it soak a while. If there is anything left sticking out, try to grab them with Vise-grips or something and back them out. If that doesn't work, get some left hand drill bits and try to get them out with that. If that still doesn't work, you are pretty much left with drill them out and re-tap or helicoil and start over.