HELP! Cross threaded bed tie down bolt

[SESelig]

I have a factory spray in liner that had the side tie down holes in the bed a bit covered. I cut away some of the liner and then tried to thread one of the bolts. Needless to say it stopped abruptly and I knew something was wrong. I took out the bolt and about an 1/8 of an inch of the beginning of the bolt got cross threaded. Any advice on how to fix this?

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[Pinepig]

I'd use a soldering iron to melt out most of the spay liner in the threaded hole and then run a proper sized tap through it. Probably won't have to insert a fix ( timesert ) as long as you didn't force it in too hard before you took a look.

 

[WOADKIL]

I'd use a soldering iron to melt out most of the spay liner in the threaded hole and then run a proper sized tap through it. Probably won't have to insert a fix ( timesert ) as long as you didn't force it in t0o hard before you took a look.

Plus One on running a tap thru with plenty of oil/lube. You should likely saved the hole. Do NOT use the damaged bolt.

 

[SESelig]

Thank all. I might just take it to my local truck store guy who did work on my other vehicles as he probably has all of the proper tools

 

[alcohenusa]

Thank all. I might just take it to my local truck store guy who did work on my other vehicles as he probably has all of the proper tools

I used these to clean out the holes on mine with the factory spray in liner.

https://www.amazon.com/Bolt-Thread-...K,B077MMG9CL,B085T9959P,B08BJKV52D,B0942TXHYK

Some of the holes were really tough to do manually. For those, I used a variable speed drill by starting very slowly and building up the speed. The large one will do the holes for the bed tie downs in the middle of the bed. The smaller one fits the holes by the tailgate.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

I have a factory spray in liner that had the side tie down holes in the bed a bit covered. I cut away some of the liner and then tried to thread one of the bolts. Needless to say it stopped abruptly and I knew something was wrong. I took out the bolt and about an 1/8 of an inch of the beginning of the bolt got cross threaded. Any advice on how to fix this?

Hi Steven,

As has been indicated...a tap BY HAND ONLY into the holes will clean out the spray in liner. The trick here in my opinion is to tap into the hole a turn or two and then half turn back out...the a couple more turns and another half turn back out. This back out causes the crud or chips to drop into the flutes of the tap. The smaller holes are 6mm x 1.00 and the larger holes are 8mm x 1.25...Taps are cheap but you need a tap wrench too. As for the bolt withe the narffed threads, I metric thread file can straighten these out, but the file is likely same price as a new bolt. Your Mechanic may have the thread files and no need to order a bolt if that is the case.

Good luck!

Best,
Phil

 

[JesseS]

I have a spray in liner also, but had no issue threading in the bolts for the swing cases or middle tie downs, just used a xacto knife to cut the liner around the hole edge then used the point to push the liner material out of the threads. Took about 5 minutes per hole but the bolts went right in. I thought about running a chaser thru it but didn't have a metric one of the correct M8 size.

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