Bolt Sizes

[CanukRunner]

I purposly waited over 16 hours to post this as my emotional state would have me thrown off the forum for sure.. lol

My buddy and I got the poly kits from wheelers off road in , front and rear sways and steering racks.

The kits were perfect... (Thanks Wheelers)

The Toyotas were..... best not to say on this forum..... ( and I love my truck)

Almost all bolts sheered... Prep work... sprayed all bolts with pb blaster on the day of ordering (AND EVERY DAY AFTER..lol)

My buddy (who was about to sell his Ranger to buy a Taco) is a mechanic came over with all the tools ( taps, extractors..etc..) to help us out..

Apparently the grade of bolts .. are .. junk... I mean real junk... The extraction process was done properly... drilled a pilot half the size of the bolt in far enough with a drill that could hold the bit properly with sufficient power to do the job ..

The bolts just crumbled. (this was on the 2002, the bolts looked pretty good actually)

Needless to say my friend is a ford man again.. and he has us wondering.

I know That engineering means that you can use a strength of material that suits the application and save money.... but we all agreed that perhaps they should have known that corrosion does happen .. And I know I'll hear flames about "look at the rust" ... but its not bad enough to shear a bolt of any quality (3 or higher)...

This is vehicle # 24.. I have sheard one or two bolts over the years ... never the majority of them on one vehicle. ( should have known something was up after shearing every bolt on my running boards to remove them.)

I'm pretty sure our ball joints.. ya... same engineer.. not so proud to have bought from toyota any more... next time im choosing napa.

My buddy with the 2002 put his 4runner for sale last night.

Rant over...

I will never purchase a bolt from the dealer other than to use it to buy a real one.

Is there any way of finding out bolt sizes for the undercarriage so I can get some grade 8 stuff?

I'd love to keep the runner .. (has an amazing 5spd tranny which holds 5000 pounds towing, engine is still running clean, corners better than my 2003 jetta gli, very capable off road...) but with no solutions to this problem there is no point.

 

[Nelsonmd]

SO i woke up and didnt get

Well I'm sorry to hear that.

 

[theizzardking]

SO i woke up and didnt get

SO, go back to sleep and get it

 

[rjaudi]

You learn to deal with it. On mine I think I didn't even try to remove the bolts, I just brought the angle grinder out. The wheelers kit makes you reuse your existing sway bar bracket. If you get a universal energy suspension sway bar kit in 1 inch it comes with zinc plated bushing brackets. I think they run 15 dollars.

 

[theizzardking]

I thought the bolts were at least a grade 5, on my 99 I haven't had one rusted or sheared bolt , knock on wood , maybe climate and road conditions play a major part over the engineering, that said I do the same replace everything I can with grade 8 , I've been restoring old vw buses so I'm no stranger to rusty bolts but that's a really bad story and don't think thats generally the case , that sucks man , I don't know what else to really say except good luck oversizing or helio coiling each one of those, again really sorry man!!!

 

[TheDurk]

The little bolts on sway bar links and brackets pretty much die in place if there's salt. I lost half of mine. But are you saying you sheared all your rack bolts?? Yikes, those are pretty big.

 

[J.A.]

Sway bar front M8x1.25x30mm
Sway bar rear M8x1.25x20mm

 

[Stick Figure]

Just out of curiosity, when you went to remove these did you use an impact or a ratchet/breaker bar. A lot of times the way an impact works, can help remove corroded hardware with less chance of breaking than using traditional hand tools. As far as buying grade 8, metric bolts aren't quite rated that way, and I would be more worried about the coating on them than the actual grade of the hardware, after all it was a corrosion issue rather than a shear problem do to underrated hardware.

 

[t4r4life]

grade 8 wont fit our trucks, 10.5 will

 

[CanukRunner]

Ya we even tried heat.

The impact gun was a sure bolt breaker.


I guess I'll always have to plan to be down the truck for a while when a repair is needed.

 

[IanB]

Rusty/corroded bolts are a huge PITA, pretty well all used vehicles around here have them due to the salt they put on our roads in winter. The surf is clean underneath, and it is a real treat everytime I get under there!

When I lowered my Acura 1.6EL, I broke the heads off 3/4 of the big bolts in the rear suspension that had to be removed, huge PITA. They seized right into the bushing sleeves, needed new LCA's to put it back together.

 

[Big John]

Replacing everything with a grade 8 equivalent is not the answer to the problem. Just because the grade is higher, doesn't make them better for all applications. Grade 5 is not as brittle as 8 and is commonly used in applications that have a side load. Grade 8 would be commonly used for a straight pulling load. My 9500lb Warn winch came with grade 5 bolts and I used that winch right up to that 9500 lbs without issue.
This is a very simplified break down and you may want to do some research on graded bolts before making this decision.

I personally think you'd be better off to use anti seize liberally and take better care of your undercarriage to prevent rust. Those of us that live in cold country can't just let the underside of our rigs fend for themselves then ***** when they need to take it apart. I black out (paint) the underside of mine usually twice a year or so. Doesn't take much time and I don't have the problems you're having.