Hi everyone, I was swapping in a factory coil and spring assembly on the front of my 02 s2k, I pulled the upper arm to help get the assembly out and in easily as per the diy on here. Upon reinstallation one of the bolts would not tighten up, it turns out the nut on the inside of the upper arm is stripped. It is basically a nut welded to the upper arm chasis support which the bolt goes into. I don't have the means or tools to cut off the nut and replace it. Does anyone have any experience repairing these ?.

My first thought was to put a new nut on the old nut and get a longer bolt, or possibly putting in the bolt in the reverse direction and putting in a new nut on the open side that doesn't have the factory nut, again with a new longer bolt. Any recommendations or advice on this ?. Any help would be appreciated.

I did the removal and assembly as per the shop manual specs, I torqued everything by hand to the appropriate specs. The lower shock bolt torqued up to 47 ft lbs easily, the upper shock nuts torqued to 36 ft lbs, but the large bolt on the upper arm couldn't hold 75 ft lbs. I supported the vehicle weight on the lower arm prior to tightening as per the manual recommendation. When I removed the bolts they made a loud cracking noise, I lubed and cleaned the threads before removal and upon reinstallation, no luck. I checked to see if it was the bolts or the nuts that were stripped but it turns out to be the nuts as their threads came out when I tried a different bolt. My car is now non-mobile until I can source out some parts.

Any advice would be very helpful, I appreciate any replies and thanks for reading.

 

you could use a tap and die kit. Go to your local auto parts store and see if they rent out tools. I just started using tap and die kits a few days ago and are really useful. In my case I was removing the stock exhaust tips when the head of the screw broke off, I used a drill to drill out the remaining shaft left in the exhaust tip and used a tap slightly larger than the stock screw size to make a new hole. With this newly formed hole I just used a corresponding screw size to hold it in place.

 

thanks for the reply carbon, I have a tap and die set, I'm not sure if I could get a tap in that location to re-thread the nut, it's pretty tight in there. I'll try it out but I doubt I can enough space to do it. thanks for the reply and suggestion.

 

I ended up getting some longer bolts from Honda along with a large locknut. I now have a new bolt that goes through a set of double nuts, it torqued down to spec and it appears all is good. Glad the parts guy at my Honda dealer used to be a Honda mechanic and he was able to source out some bolts that are used on other Hondas that fit the bill. It saved me a ton of work going this route. If anyone needs some part numbers feel free to hit me up. Thanks for reading.

 

good stuff!

 

You can just bang it off with an impact hammer and slap on a new nut (M12 x 1.25). If you're worried about appearances, just take it to a shop for a quick spot weld and spray it with black Rustoleum.