The car is an 85 GS. I'm trying to figure out how to remove two of the three bolts that hold up the fuel pump protection plate (or whatever the hell it's called). The bolts have rubber washers (dampeners) and go up through the frame rail. They just turn and I can't figure out how to get them off without a grinder.

What am I missing here..

Thanks



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if the bolts are just spinning, the nuts have broken free from the inside of the frame rail. you'll have to grind the heads off to get the mounting plate off. reinstalling will also be a nightmare as you will then have nothing to mount to. the only way imo, is to make slices in teh frame rail with a plasma cutter or angle grinder and re-tack the nuts on the inner frame rail and weld patches over where you cut. this is a terrible can of worms to open.

 

Crap. I figured it would be something like that. I love making sparks with the grinder near fuel fuel lines.

Thanks.

 

If the nuts have broken off, due to the nature of the rubber isolators, you could just tack some new nuts on the outside of the frame rail. If the bolts are just stripped - what happened to mine, you can drill and use some helicoils.

 

I have an 84 SE which is fuel injected, so not sure how similiar they are. But what confuses me is the remark about the dampers. On mine there are two bolts that have the rubber grommet, but they are used to bolt the fuel pump to the cover plate. On mine there are 3 bolts that attach the cover plate to the frame rail and one nut that attaches to a stud from the body.

If yours is similiar, it may be that the nuts on the fuel pump mounting bracket are stripped and you can get to those easily after you drop the cover plate.

hope that helps.