Tailgate Hinge Bolt Head Stripped

[GATORB8]

Excellent point. You probably saved me quite a few F-bombs with that.

I feel your pain, brother. I broke one in a oil pan bolt a long time ago and I still have flashbacks anytime I have to break one out.

Had to use one last week after stripping a door hinge bolt. I cringed when I clicked on your post.

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[jaardappel]

This is exactly what I was trying last night. The extractor bit snapped off inside the bolt. Yea… lol

Uh oh. Lord. That blows...sorry to hear that. If you take the interior rear door panel off, you'll see that all 4 bolts and fastening hardware are replaceable. Might take a bit to figure out how to remove it from the inside, but I think you probably can if you get creative with a dremel and cutting wheel.

PM me if you are at wits end and I can Zoom/Facetime and walk you through some ideas. When I opened up my rear door to install a drop-down panel/table, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Jeep made the interior mounting hardware replaceable for the hinges....saves us from having to replace the whole door.

 

[cafecito820]

Uh oh. Lord. That blows...sorry to hear that. If you take the interior rear door panel off, you'll see that all 4 bolts and fastening hardware are replaceable. Might take a bit to figure out how to remove it from the inside, but I think you probably can if you get creative with a dremel and cutting wheel.

PM me if you are at wits end and I can Zoom/Facetime and walk you through some ideas. When I opened up my rear door to install a drop-down panel/table, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Jeep made the interior mounting hardware replaceable for the hinges....saves us from having to replace the whole door.

Well, success was achieved, just not how I had planned.

From the outside, I kept trying to do a horizontal channel for a huge flathead bit that I had with a ratchet set, but it could just never grab well enough before it twisted out. So last night, I spent all even carefully tapping INTO the backside of the bolt from the inside. I got one screw into it, and the screw snapped off... (WHY AREN'T THE HEADS OF THESE TORX SCREWS AS DURABLE AS THE REST OF THEM!?)

So I ground that screw off, and started tapping the next size up right into it. I got a larger screw buried deep into the inside of it, but it just wasn't moving. I went back to the big flathead bit on the front, but went YOLO with the Dremel, and it finally came loose. (Who knows, maybe all the twisting from the tapping helped?)

Either way, I replaced them all with normal hex-head bolts, and I'm never touching them again...

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