A tip for XJ owners and others

Question: how the heck did you keep the captive nuts from spinning as you tapped them? I finally had to tack weld the crimp on mine to get them tapped but that a tad drastic if there is another way....

I really don't know why they didn't spin, but I used WD-40 to lube the tap and flush the chips. Normally I use either congealed bacon drippings or sulphated cutting oil.

I only cut a quarter turn at a time, backed out enough to snap the chips loose and then went again ... very slow and careful. No hard twisting, nice and easy.

Every full turn or turn and a half, I backed out enough to break chips then I shot the WD in to flush and re-lube things.

On my XJ there's no, zero, nada, access to the captive nuts (frame welded to body) so I couldn't have even welded them if they had spun and that's why I went so slow. Plus I didn't want to drop the crossmember if I didn't have to, so I drilled and tapped right up through it.

Looking back, I understated the time required ... I was laying on a cold driveway for an hour at least.

My apologies on that.

And you can go 1/32" bigger on the drill if you have to and not lose much thread strength. That will make tapping easier also.

Translation: I got lucky ;-)

The captive nuts I'm most familiar with are the ones with a small section that fits thru the frame with the end of the thru-section rolled over to crimp the whole mess. I usually tack weld the exposed rolled part but the one I remember best was the one that simply pushed back into the frame - old Jeeps and rust have this affinity... Anyway, the was a larger hole fairly near to the spot where the thing popped out so I was able to fish a nut over the hole and get a long bolt started into it. That held it long enough to weld the nut to the side of the hole but it was a fight.

Another trick with a turning nut I was shown was to thread a stud into it then use a thin halfnut to cinch it down while I worked. Still a PITA on a