Broken Seat bolt

[babiker712]

I have had the seats in and out of my 2000 LGT (BE) legacy many times, but most recently allowed my Dad to help reassemble. The front right passenger seat bolt must have gotten cross threaded, because when he was tightening I heard a break and the bolt now spins free. My real question is how do I fix this, or how F'd are we? I imagine we can cut the head off the bolt with a sawzall and redrill the hole with a wider bit. Just trying to figure out what we can do to A) be able to pull that seat again in the future, and B) restore functionality of the bolt.

Any opinions or previous experiences would be helpful. Thanks.

[chuckthefuk]

Simply put you can extract the bolt then tap the threads when you ready for re installations. YOU MUST take care when doing this since this is a direct safety item!!

http://www.cdxetextbook.com/images/useScrewextract.jpg

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2012/02/690634_300-2.jpg
Cheap as $30 and up to $300 depending on brand, amount of bits, guides, etc..

This is a "tap & die" set.. can be had for as low as $70 up to $500 depending on material/items/etc..
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2012/02/td60-2.jpg

[Hocrest]

Either the treads are stripped, in which case retapping will work. Or the captive nut broke loose.

Some of the seat bolts can be accessed from under the car. If so you can put another nut in place and a few tack welds should take care of it. If you don't have access to a welder, use a brush to clean away all the undercoating around the where the nut will go. Without the seat in place use a bolt to hold the nut into position. Have the carpet pulled back and take the car to a independent garage. If they don't have to do any of the prep work, they'll probably do it for not too much.

[babiker712]

Either the treads are stripped, in which case retapping will work. Or the captive nut broke loose.

Some of the seat bolts can be accessed from under the car. If so you can put another nut in place and a few tack welds should take care of it. If you don't have access to a welder, use a brush to clean away all the undercoating around the where the nut will go. Without the seat in place use a bolt to hold the nut into position. Have the carpet pulled back and take the car to a independent garage. If they don't have to do any of the prep work, they'll probably do it for not too much.

This is what I think happened. Any idea if this is the case on the BE Legacy? IIRC it seemed like the bolt was going into the raised floorpan mount, not through the body...

[Hocrest]

From memory it it the bolts that go into the tunnel that you have access to from underneath. Can't say for sure though...