Jack got these installed on his 1999 GMC Suburban when it was new. One had gotten loose so we attempted to re-tighten it this afternoon. If we had stuck to our plan it might have worked out okay, but in order to tighten the loose bolt, we had to remove the bar from the truck. The bar mounts to brackets and the brackets are bolted to the frame of the truck. When the rear bracket is mounted to the frame, the bolt holding the bar in place is inaccessible, so we had to dismount the bar. Once we have the bar off, we are still in disassembly mode and we try to remove the bolts that hold the bar to the bracket and they do NOT want to come out. Well, we're big, fat Americans and ain't something as simple as a bolt gonna tell us no, so out come the hammer and tongs. An hour later we have the brackets off, but the remains of the bolts are still firmly lodged in place inside the bar. Drill and sledge hammer fail to dislodge them. Finally we break out the cutting torch which makes short work of the recalcitrant bits. Of course now we need to weld new nuts onto the tabs inside the tubes.
As well as providing a step to make getting in and out of the vehicle easier, these bars also provide some protection for the body from rocks when out wandering around in the boonies. There were a couple of big dents in the underside of the tubes indicating that they were doing their job. There was also considerable rust on the underside, clear through in some places. Jack admits to going in the water on occasion, which got water inside the tubes where it proceeded to encourage the rust that produced the holes in the bottom and locked up the bolts. The truck is 17 years old, so the bars held up pretty well considering the abuse they suffered. I wonder if a drain hole would have helped.
2 comments:
Too frequently a drain hole is seen as the solution to a problem without sufficient thought being put into determining placement. A well-placed drain hole? Surely!
Agree!
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