Rear seat bolts sheared - suggestions??

[georgemason]

Hi all,

In the process of removing my rusty boot floor and cleaning up the area for welding I've managed to shear off over half of the bolts holding down the rear seats. Since the nuts are welded to the underside of the panel, and the panel's a bit rusty, I was going to just replace it and thereby have new nuts :D

Problem is, LR dealers at Lewes have never heard of said panel, and neither paddocks nor J Craddocks seem to carry it either. All the more annoying as I've already started drilling the spot welds on one side :fire: So I'm thinking, what else can I do? Drill the old nuts out and weld in new ones? Cut out squares around them and weld in repair panels with nuts welded to them? I dunno.

If anyones got any ideas I'd be pleased to hear em!

[Madenglishman]

try ringing All Terrain St Lenards East Sussex 01424 200262 they are very helpful.:p

[Madenglishman]

http://www.terrainvehicles.co.uk/

[redhand]

If all else fails remove the captive nuts and replace with new ones. Before fitting the new floor. If you want to replace the panel try a scrap yard or patch the existing one.

[Underdog]

That sloping panel is not normally replaced during the floor pan re-new, in fact, you're the first person I've known who has felt the need to replace it.:rolleyes:


If you mean you've sheared off the rear seat attachment bolts, these are 3/16 dia and around an inch long. Why cant you drill out the sheared bolt and re-tap the holes??

[thebiglad]

Hi georgemason, I have just taken out the back seats in my Disco TODAY !

Almost all the the bolts sheared off so I've had to work out a new method of fitting the rear seats. What I've done is to source (from a local DIY place) some large headed no.6 bolts with matching nuts and large diem washers.

First of all I cold-chisled the old captive nuts off. This left nice straight round holes.

I've got the floor out so I can feed the bolts through from underneath and they are currently loosely held in place with nuts.

Once I done all the preparation for the new floor I plan to refit the rear seats BEFORE installing the new floor.

I'm sure this is not the BEST way to do it, but by the time I has sheared most of the bolts I wasn't thinking all that straight, so it's offered as a sort of solution !!

[georgemason]

That sloping panel is not normally replaced during the floor pan re-new, in fact, you're the first person I've known who has felt the need to replace it.:rolleyes:


If you mean you've sheared off the rear seat attachment bolts, these are 3/16 dia and around an inch long. Why cant you drill out the sheared bolt and re-tap the holes??Yeah I've completely changed my mind about replacing that panel, bad call on my part:rolleyes:. I'm going to weld it back down again and try not to get so carried away with the drilling next time!

As far as the captive nuts are concerned, I'll try drilling and retapping them, and if that doesn't work I'll attempt some sort of chiselling manoeuvre (as suggested by biglad) or maybe attack it with the grinder. I'll let you know!

[georgemason]

try ringing All Terrain St Lenards East Sussex 01424 200262 they are very helpful.:pJust wanted to say thanks for the tip, went down to see Mark at All Terrain and he was a great help indeed. Feel much more confident about tackling the job now - and he even sold me 3 reinforced crossmembers that were to go in his Disco!