Broken Stud - Rear Sway Bar Mount

Those swaybar studs are round-head 'bolts' tack-welded inside the crossmember. The only way I found to fix this was to knock out the spot-welded head, then drill into the crossmember from the ZF side and use a real bolt & washer thru your drilled hole. Be sure to size your drilled hole for socket clearance so you can hold the bolt for tightening.

Trying to weld-repair a broken stud doesn't hold very long- possibly because weld heat anneals the result, which was too small & weak to start with. With a real bolt you can go to the next grade and size up and be much stronger. The fix is invisible to all but people who've had this happen.

Hi Jack, it looks like that fix will work for the top stud but the bottom stud is inaccessible from the ZF side because of the car's long frame rail.

Since the stud is evidently a bolt, of which the head has been welded to the body, could you dress the exposed bit of broken stud flat enough to center punch it, carefully drill through it and tap it 8mmx1.25, basically turning what was the hidden head of the bolt into a captive nut to receive a bolt from the outside?

That is exactly what I did over 20 years ago.

@larryw posted:

Since the stud is evidently a bolt, of which the head has been welded to the body, could you dress the exposed bit of broken stud flat enough to center punch it, carefully drill through it and tap it 8mmx1.25, basically turning what was the hidden head of the bolt into a captive nut to receive a bolt from the outside?

Larry, that is the approach I am using now.  I might be able to snake a nut onto the stud to make it stronger.

When I retrieved my broken stud-heads and found they were small, round and tack-welded in only three places, I decided I wasn't lucky enough for the other stud/bolts to be welded good enough to take drilling & tapping without breaking loose. Apparently others were lucky.

And as I said, backside-drilling of the crossmember gives one the opportunity to use a larger bolt of a stronger grade than stock. YMMV-

Grind it flush, center punch the broken stud,  drill and tap it 8mm x1.25 , thread in a long (12.9 grade fully threaded) bolt until it bottoms out on the forward wall of the frame, cut the head off and dress the end of the remaining portion.

Ron

@rmccall posted:

Grind it flush, center punch the broken stud,  drill and tap it 8mm x1.25 , thread in a long (12.9 grade fully threaded) bolt until it bottoms out on the forward wall of the frame, cut the head off and dress the end of the remaining portion.

Ron

Did this years ago on the '72 I used to own.  Worked really well.

Drilling through the broken stud, through the head and tapping it is all that you need to do.

The tack welded head will act as a captive nut and the tack welds keep it from turning. Those welds were strong enough to not spin when you snapped off the original stud. Don't hit it with an impact wrench to tighten the new bolt though.

Use plenty of oil on the tap and then on the new bolt and tighten it by hand.

I had a couple of the original studs snap off on me also and drilling and tapping what was left worked for me.

...Sure, Just drill and tap it and be done with it!

MJ

Got it fixed.  I drilled and tapped the snapped off stud.  I used a 60mm bolt as the starter for the new stud and cut it to length.  I used JB Weld as a thread locker on the final stud, and bottomed out the stud using opposing nuts.

Nice job Steve

so easy can it be