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The back half is not a seperate bolt, if it were it would fall off into the door when you take screw out...dremel works or drill it out...smal, bit, drill in and then reverse drill to pull it out.
The back half is not a seperate bolt, if it were it would fall off into the door when you take screw out...dremel works or drill it out...smal, bit, drill in and then reverse drill to pull it out.
I'm well aware it is not a separate bolt.
The bolt screws into a captured nut, which can often be accessed from inside the tailgate. Depending on the length of the bolt used, you may be able to put a vice-grips on the threads of the bolt and continue threading the bolt out the backside through the interior door shell.
The method you describe above will most likely end up with paint damage to the exterior, destruction of the captured nut, and probably still a stuck broken bolt.
Sorry, I meant a captured nut...that being corrected...the small drill bit idea worked for me, some masking tape for protection...no damage to the exterior or the captured nut. Although it is possible to cause paint damage to the exterior and destruction of the captured nut...
Sorry, I meant a captured nut...that being corrected...the small drill bit idea worked for me, some masking tape for protection...no damage to the exterior or the captured nut. Although it is possible to cause paint damage to the exterior and destruction of the captured nut...
I agree that with patience and a little previous experience, the bolt may come out easily with the drilling method, especially since there is a possibility that it is likely a cheaper, softer bolt used for the license plate application.
I had this same problem when I owned my 4th gen 4Runner. The idiots at the dealership used self-tapping screws and made two new holes in my tailgate and attached the plate in the lower holes. This was because they were too lazy to grab some penetrating oil and slowly work out the seized bolts in the captured nuts. After I found their hack-job on my tailgate, besides being royally pissed, I took some Deep Creep and a vise-grips and worked the bolts out in less than 5 minutes.
On my 2013 RX350 there is a round enclosed piece of steel welded over the bolt (inside the lift gate), for protection I suppose. Can't even see the bolt. And it's broken off below the surface.
Get some left hand thread drill bits and drill a hole through the bolt (in reverse). Then enlarge the hole with regular bits (switch to forward) and work your way up in size until you start to get near the threads of the bolt. You should then be able to use an extractor to remove the drilled out bolt. Depending on your ability to drill a straight hole, you may have to retap the hole.
03-05-16, 03:42 AM
Help Broken Rusted Rear License Plate Screw
