I am well on the way to replacing my trunk floor and braces on my 1972 Olds Cutlass Convertable. The trunk was badly rusted and the body bolts just snapped right off. Now I want to take the front body bolts out, my floor pans are fine except for some surface rust.

My concern is that if I snap off these bolts too that I will have to cut off the floor pan braces to get to the cage nuts. This must be a common issue so how does everybody else do it?

 

Most of us snap the caged nut inside the body and end up cutting a hole to replace it.

Your best bet is to use an impact wrench, but don't be surprised if a few snap or spin. On my 66 convertible, I spun the two front cage nuts with a breaker bar and got the rest loose using an impact wrench,

 

i'd take a hole saw and open the floor up above the cage nut. this way you can heat up the bolt/nut, and zip them out with an impact. then either put plugs in the holes or cut out some sheet metal circles and weld them back up.

of course, this only works if you can get above them.

 

I soaked mine with a penetrating fluid for a week before trying to take them out. Half of them ended up still spinning

 

I got them soaking now. I will try to get them out this weekend. What a PItA.

 

I know what you mean! I had to cut and weld up the floor in three different spots to get to the cage nuts.

 

Does somebody make new cages and nuts to weld back on?

 

When i did my 72 one cage nut snapped soaked it heated it even broke off to easy outs ,after all that still had to cut hole in floor to take then out .luckly i could drill out old bolt minus three drill bits carbon ,in vise for stability and all is well back together holden tight good luck

 

Ground Up Restorations sells them, but i just fixed 2 of them and made a new one. http://www.ss396.com/mm5/merchant.mv...t_Code=BCN-716