I'm swapping the bodys on my toyota pickups. The cab bolts came out with no problems, but the box bolts on one of them are rusted bad. I soaked them with penetrating oil for about 2 weeks. Once i knocked all the rust of they nuts are pretty much round. I pounded a socket on a couple of them but cannot get them to budge or break. I dont have access to torches to cut them out,zip cut is a little hard to get in there,i tried a chisel to move them or break them and cant. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

If the nuts are rusted that badly, chances are that the captured section on top is going to break off anyway. I had the bed off my truck 3 years ago and it came off easy. I did it again just a few months back and ended up having to cut holes in the bed to capture the top sections and stop them from spinning.

I would have just cut them with a torch from below, but I had a massive gas leak...

 

Yeah i wish i had access to a torch to cut them off. Was hoping not to have to cut the box to get at them i did that with my 87 and ended up making a mess out of the box.

 

torch em

 

Like i said no access to a torch or the boxes would be off.

 

Pound a bolt extractor on 'em and have at it.

 

haven't ever looked but can you drill the center of the bolt out? may take time but might work, slam it with a punch first to get a good divet and then drill away

 

I might try to drill them out when I get a chance or even drill through the nut then should be easier to break with a chisel.

 

2nd this.. drill out the center of bolt head to equal diameter of bolt or just less than bolt diameter, head will pop off and you'll be set.

edit: if its the nut side, drill out about half the size of the bolt diameter, through the length of the nut, and they should break right off.

 

Put all of the other box bolts back in, drive it to a muffler shop and give them $10 to torch the bolt off, then drive her home and rip the box off! Good luck. Luckily my box bolts came out without too much trouble

 

Craftsman makes a kit just for this. There are various sized nut socket thingys that will easily grip and remove rounder nuts or bolts. Has saved my ass a few times

 

If it is too tight for a grinder to grind one side of the nut, then use a dremel with the fine cutting discs and cut a slot in the nut. It does not have to be all the way through, since the nut will weaken and loosen it hold when you try the socket again.

 

Drilling the center of the bolt will take to long.I got 2 bolts on one box and all of them on the other to take out. Barely got ahead today drilling on one of the bolts for 20 minutes. Neither of the trucks are drivable to get to a shop one has no brakes and body is really rotten and the other has no motor. I'm in the process of swapping bodys. I'll have to look into the kit craftsmen has i dont have a dremel tool either something i think i will invest in eventually tho.

 

Trust me, that craftsman set is badass, comes in a red plastic box, it's like 25 bones IIRC

 

I just had a bolt like this on my Runner, but fortunately, mine was one of the radiator bolts. The head popped off as I tried to unscrew it. I drilled at it for hours, finally getting a hole deep enough to use the Easy Out on. The bolt had other ideas, though, and the Easy Out broke before the bolt did. Tried to drill through that off and on for weeks (my truck's off the road right now). Finally, I got fed up and used grinder to cut the bolt and the metal surrounding it out. I welded in a replacement nut and metal. That might be your only option.

 

I got 4 out today by putting a small grinding wheel i had on my drill. it took awhile but not as long as the drilling. Now i have the 4 closets to the cab that i cant get the drill and grinding wheel at,so gotta figurs something out for them.