My 69 has a welded-on drop type bracket for the PS ram, and I want to remove it and put an original bracket back on. One long bolt goes through the frame horizontally and two shorter bolts go vertically into crush nuts. Not sure what I will find when I remove the old bracket, so bought two new crush nuts. Are these nuts welded into the frame? If not, how do they mount? Ty
Those nuts are pulled in the frame and crush, similar to a rivnut. They can be installed using a bolt and flat washer if the holes are there. You will need a socket and a breaker bar maybe 24" long in order to crush the nuts.
This is the sort of tool the factory would have used. This one is #10-32 so the one used by Ford for the 3/8-16 would have been much larger.
Ty Royce. I am going to grind off the welds on the drop bracket and check the holes. With further research I found your same advice on the StangerSite. Of interest, they note that sometimes the nuts are still tack welded down to prevent movement, even though the factory didn’t do this. Also, the factory purportedly discarded the bolts they used to crush the nuts as it put so much stress on them they were concerned the metal fatigue could make them fail.
The riv-nuts are attached to a plate that sits inside the frame rail, so that the rivnut sits flush with the surface of the frame rail.
Thanks Mike. Looks like one of the nuts pulled through or I guess you wouldn’t be holding it in your hand! I assume once they are crushed they don’t just fall out.
Also looks like a crack above the hole . A good welder and machinist should be able to fix
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