The other week my DC Sports strut bar came in the mail, so I thought to myself, "It should only take 5-10 minutes, so I'll go do it right away!" Well, it should have only taken 5-10 minutes, but I hit a little snag.

I took off both nuts from the strut tower bolts on the passenger side; they were nice and snug the way they should be, but came off easily, so I was confident that the install was going to be a breeze. However, when I got to the driver's side, things began to fall apart, literally. I got the socket wrench over the nut, and just began to apply force, when the bolt simply snapped in two. And by snap I don't mean "pop": the socket wrench just sort of fell over with the bolt and nut still inside the socket. I stared at it with disbelief for a few moments, because of how little force had been applied. Here's a quick pic of the carnage:



Well, I took it to the dealer, thinking that it would be an easy fix, after all, its just one bolt. Suprise! They quoted me $262; apparently I needed a new mount, and it would take them two hours to install it. I'm sure that this install time would be with them working feverishly and even skipping their mid-job coffee break. Well, I started to walk over to the parts department because the mount needed to be ordered, when I had an epiphany: "Hey, stupid! Have someone else look at it first! You can probably even do it yourself!"

So, I stopped off at a local shop and had them put it up on the lift. They told me that the bolt looked like a press fit, and that they could probably get another bolt in there without even taking the wheel off. They said that the quickest fix would be to order the bolt directly from the dealer...So back to the lovely parts department I went.

I get to the parts counter, and asked if I could order a bolt for the mount. I was then informed that the only way to get the bolt was to order the whole mount which was in the neighborhood of 80$ or so. I decided that I might as well try the cheaper way, and just find a replacement bolt. I was concerned, however that my car would have a "non-GM" bolt, seeing as how the last one was so durable.

Anyhow, I was able to use the resources of the machinist at work, who identified the type and grade of bolt and who was able to hook me up with it.

The final install:
I had determined that I did not want to buy a whole new mount for the car, and that combined with the fact that the bolts were press fit meant that I had to make the hole in the mount slightly bigger for the new bolt to fit through easily. Fortunately, a good friend at work had a set of diamond needle files for me to use.

So I popped out the lower half of the bolt and carefully filed the hole just big enough for the new bolt to push through. "Alright!", I thought to myself. Now I just had to push it up through the bottom, right behind the spring. So I hugged the tire, and...struggled for 2-3 minutes just trying to find the hole. When I finally did, I found out that the bolt I had was just a few threads too long; the head of the bolt was hitting the spring, so I couldn't get it through the hole. Well, no huge problem there, I just took it into the basement and put it on the old grinding wheel until it was just small enough to clear the spring.

However, now I had to use the diamond needle files to clean up the threads so that the nut would fit on it with no problem. It took about 10-15 minutes of filing, but in the end, I had a bolt that would fit through the mount, and a nut that would fit.

Problem over? Not quite! I went to loosen the other nut on the mount, and all it would do was spin along with the carriage bolt! So I had to hold the bolt with vise grips while turning with a wrench. I did this until there was no more space for the vise grips to hold. Then I had to use wrenches as levers to apply enough pressure on the nut to keep the carriage bolt from spinning. Well, I finally got the nut off, but now the bolt threads were shot from the vise grips; the nut wouldn't go back on! So, out came the diamond needle files...20 minutes later, I was back in business! But not before spending another 15 minutes trying to get everything tightened down while the bolt wanted to spin at every turn of the wrench.

Oh, and by the way, I love the feel of the strut bar when cornering; it was definately a good investment!

Thanks for reading the book; I'm just so glad that that I saved $260, even if it did mean a few hours working in the cold.

And I don't even want to think about the possible condition of the third bolt in the mount.

Anyone else have a story about a job that got more complicated than it should have been?

 

damn dude thats a bummer...but im glad you got a second opinion with some good work your moving right along niice...

 

Yeah, isn't it crazy how bad a simple project can go in such a short amount of time?

 

same thing happend to my buddy, when i get a strut bar im making the dealer put it on so if thwey break it they fix it. lol

 

Well, that was a big pain in the ass. I would have just bought the new mount. After all of trouble, you could have put that in yourself.

This is the second time I've heard of people breaking this stud off. It shouldn't be that tight, so I'm always surprised by it. That and valve cover screws.

 

you should have driven it to the dealership and been like i hear a funny noise coming from the drivers side front. and got a warranty job lol

 

haha yeah should have done that

 

Yikes I've heard of people breaking the bolts when they over-tighten the nuts, but yours is the first I've heard of that broke while removing the nut. Makes me fear for the rest of them.

Good job fixing it the way you did; didn't even need an alignment afterwards which removing the strut & strutmount would have.

 

Well, by the time I found out it was going to be a psin, I was already so far into it that I didn't want to quit.

And as for the bolt breaking, it was so weak that I bet I could have broken it off with my hands.

 

Nice story, I like happy endings and the most important part. You gave the dealer NOTHING!!!! Glad it worked out for you, a little elbow grease in the car, will help you appreciate it that much more!!!

 

Yeah, a little elbow grease and some scratched hands. A little advise: watch out for little metal burrs in the wheel well when you're messing around there.

 

holly **** ***** batman!!! is that an oyster???

 

I dont follow

 

lol. I'm glad it worked out for you in the end. Makes me feel a little better knowing other people have stupid problems like that too. I was convinced it was just me. I bet you kept your cool better than i would have though.

 

nice improvising!

Its shitty how parts like this are poorly designed. they rig so that only a machanic can work on you car.

 

extremely nice use of smileys and such.

 

My strut bar is on the way... hopefully I dont have the same problem!

 

You shouldn't have a problem; I think mine was just a fluke. But if something does happen, you know what to do.

 

that same thing happened to me. The actual part is only 80 bucks, but they charge like 140 for labor.

 

That sucks, seems like crap like that happens to me all the time, except for when I installed my strut bar, everything went smooth. Sounds like it should have been covered under warranty to me. I have had GM realign my headlights after I painted them and istalled new bulbs. I just told them I was trying to adjust the beam higher and i screwed them up. So they covered it under warranty... Man.. I am sneeky... lol

later

 

No its not a fluck, I work at a dealership (non-GM) and the strut mount bolts break all the time, you just have to spry them with some PB and let it soak ofr a little while

 

i had similar issues when i installed my header....
broke 2 bolts on downpipe, almost crossthreaded into my block etc...

 

same thing happend to 1 of my bolts when they installed my springs.... one just kept spinning. Got the mount for $40.00 shipped (dealers cost) and the guys at promotion through it on for free... nice guys. But you have to take the wheel off and strut to get to it. The bolts are actually mounted on the bracket, looked like welded shittily lol.

 

Mmm... guess you didn't read the thread on not overtightening the strut bolts... that blows majorly... someone sticky this so others don't have to do it the hard way.

 

Are you refering to my original post? The bolt snapped when I was only loosening it, not when I was finishing the install. And it didn't really snap either; it just sort-of fell off.