surfh2o

I removed the mudguards, and side chrome pieces. Removed the top black plastic piece. Had to cut out the chrome face bar. There are 2 Y-bars. They seem to bolt into the underside of the cargo floor. I removed the carpet hoping to find the other end of the bolt but didn't. I'm worried that I will break off the bolt and have no way to get a new one back in. I've already broken numerous bolts, but they were in places that wouldn't cause a problem. That also brings up a hitch question. The hitch bolts go into the frame and I'm basically worried about the same thing happening. I can see into the square frame hole where the nuts would be and if I broke the bolt I could drill it out. However, I don't know if I could get the new nuts back down the hole properly. Seems like I would lose them in there. Any ideas for either? My goal is to remove as much hardware from the rear end and brush all the rust out, coat in Rust Bullet. I also want to clean up the salvageable pieces and coat them too. I plan on only replacing nuts/bolts and the chrome face bar. I think the previous owner dropped his boat in the water a lot cause the very rear end is pretty rusty, but only the frame parts not the metal body.

WEINERDOGBONE

iTrader: (1)

I had the same problem with my rear bumper. Mine was a mess when I got it. It seemed to me that the bolt heads striiped long before I could break the hitch bolts. I just sprayed the rust eater and tried again. I did it over and over and finally got the bolts out of the hitch w/o breaking but the "Y" brackets didn't come off that well. I broke the bolts off and ended up building a new rear facia out of steel. The I drilled the frame and bolted it up. I re-attached the side pieces and welded them into the rear facia.

Good luck. It's not fun.

surfh2o

Yeah that's not for me. It seems like there has to be a way. Sure there have been lots of rust and lots of accidents. If not I'll probably just leave them in place and coat. Towing would worry me every time though. Can't believe those nuts aren't accessible. From what I can tell it's not a good design. I would think you could replace the bumper/hitch without custom fabrication.

surfh2o

I think I'm gonna leave the hitch and Y-brackets in place and just seal the hell out of everything. I've already scraped up as much rust as I can. The bolts I can't get out I'm gonna seal them up. If me or someone else needs to take them off later their gonna have to cut or drill them out, unless they just crumble off.

WEINERDOGBONE

iTrader: (1)

That seems like about as good as you can get w/o breaking and manufacturing your own parts. I didn't want to do it but I didn't feel like I had much of a choice. I went too far to turn back.

wizzells

Well, you guys just decided for me whether or not I should tackle replacing the same piece on my '02 (it's dented). Everytime I look at it it drives me crazy, but if it's that much trouble I think I can learn to get over it!

surfh2o

That's what I'm afraid of. I had an ABS issue on my Tacoma and was checking all 4 wheel sensors I got to the last one and snapped the bolt. I tried and easy out thing and that snapped real quick with a 6" adj wrench. To the last guy. Dude you may actually want to tackle it NOW the longer you wait the worse it will get. Mine is a 99 and the front is fine the rear looks like it sat in the ocean for a few weeks. I would take a look under yours and if it isn't too rusty it shouldn't be that hard to do. I started by taking off my mud flaps and just started taking bolts out. The top of the bumper that's plastic pops off(look underneath). Like I said if mine wasn't so rusty I think it would be pretty easy. I live on the east coast (VA Beach) and the salt air/water seems to eat things up.

TheDurk

I did my '99 with factory hitch two years ago. I was able to get all of them out with six-point sockets and lots of PB Blaster. I did break a lot of the small ones holding the bumper pieces on. The hitch was funky. There were four bolts on each side. Two of them went into threaded holes in the square frame member. No loose nuts. The OTHER two went into nuts welded to a thin piece of flat steel about 3/4" wide and a foot long that you could pull out the end of the member once the bolts were out. Then you had to stick it back in there and catch the nuts with the hitch bolt when you replaced the hitch. Just thought I would alert you to how mine was built in case yours is the same.

surfh2o

I see something in the hole that looks like what you might be talking about. This looks like a thin piece of metal in the frame and is an arch shape. I think mine has 3 bolts on each side.