How do remove my rusted seat bolts?!?!?!
 

Ok, so im trying to get the carpet up in my vert. I know there is rust damage down there and im trying to find out how much, and to start to neuralize/encapsalate it. ANYWAY

My bolts on my drivers side seat are compleatly rusted over. They are fused solid. I tried to use a broken bolt remover from sears (a really good one) and the front left one just snapped right off. The other three I can't even get the remover to stay on, it just carves off little peices of the bolt.

None of the shops seem to want to touch it. A local mechanic said, that i should try the machine shop, they told me to try the upolster guy up the street , he said try a body shop. At that point i just came home and tried to figure it out.

Since I cant get the bolt remover to work, im thinking that I will have to use a grinder/cutting blade to cut off the bolt head. Then I'm guessing that I will have to drill into the bolt stud and hopefully not damage the bolt holes. Or should i just skip the grinding and drill straight into the bolt heads them selves??

Any body got any ideas?
I'm going to hit up the body shop on my way to work but if they say no, im going to lose it!

Oh yes, i forgot, I soaked the bolts with pb blaster for three days, shot each bolt let it sit a day shot again sit a day, shot agian sit a day. Shot again, rounded over bolts with drivers.

If you are going to drill out the bolt, don't bother cutting it. Grab an easy out or a good drill bit. Other than that if the bolt has rusted over you can try heating it, the only delemma would be burning the carpet but if your goin to cut the bolts you will have basically the same problem lol

edit~
Use a vice grip instead of a socket if it's rounding/rounded. Use heat then some set some PB or liquid wrench on it. The try and if it still wont heat it and try again (I had to do that a ton of times on my Monte lol)

Try an easy out kit, if it doesn't work (like me) just drill a hole in the center of the bolts. Drill progressively bigger until the bolt just comes loose. Watch out for the threads.

i've heard easy outs actually break a lot too... it sucks b/c it's in the car and you dont' want to put a torch to it

Drilling the middle of the bolt seems the only option.

I've been there and done that...

One bolt I was able to remove simply by alternating PB Blaster on the underside (as in, under the car where the bolt passes through the floor...this only works on the passenger side), hitting the head with a hammer, then PB Blaster'ing it again and repeating. Finally was able to then bang it out with an impact gun.

On the drivers side where the bolts don't extend through the floor, it's more complicated. If you can get a long tube on you PB Blaster can, push it through a hole in the carpet and thoroughly hose the rear of the bolt inside the cross member. You sort of have to already know what the area looks like to do this. Then hit the bolt a few times with a hammer and repeat several times. Now try the impact to bang it out.

If the head of the bolt is already hosed, you have no choice but to grind it off. EasyOuts will not work and will just break off in the bolt. Then you have a much larger headache. Grind the head of the bolt off (you will destroy the carpet in the process). One the seat is removed, assess the damage. You may be able to drill out the bolt and retap. However the one time I tried this I ended up breaking the tap off inside the bolt because of the odd angles involved (puts uneven pressure on the tap). Finally I ended up just cutting out the effected section of the cross member and welding in a new piece. I had welded a nut to the back of the new plate to thread the new bolt into.

And remember your anti-seize when you put it back together.

that sucks. Mine was rusty too. I removed it with an impact wrench and no problems. I brought new bolts and used anti-seize to prevent that. In your case, try to grind off the head bolts. Then remove the seat. Then grind the rest of the bolt until you flush it with the floor bracket. Then try to remove it with a vise grips or a nut remover from under side of the car. If that doesnt work, drill and tap new thread into the existing ones.

plasma cutter :D

This sound like the direction that im going to have to go. The heads are compleatly rounded, even the nice little bolt remover I have doesn't grip. Its just tears off little peices of the bolt as i turn it.

Great advice all around guys thanks

Whats PB blaster? I have some rusted bolts that Im about ready to round off the read and would rather not round off the head, I've tried wd-40 and MMO but no luck.

Regards,
SUMO

PB Blaster is one of the few penetrating oils that actually work. WD-40 is useless, MMO doubly so. :)

Anybody tried that new freeze shock thing to loosen their bolts? I fear it would cause more damage than it's worth.