Need a little advice. I was going to change the fuel filter today for the first time since buying the car, since the car has just turned over 100k, but I could not get the drivers side under cover off. This cover is held to the underside of the car by several bolts and nuts that undo from long studs fixed to the chassis. Two of these nuts, which sit in deep recesses in the plastic undid to a point and then got stuck. With too much force applied, I managed to detach the shafts from the chassis so that the nuts & studs turn together. After trying various different methods to loosen the nuts, my need for a beer overwhelmed my enthusiasm for working on the car, so I put the other nuts & bolts back and gave up for the day.
What I am thinking of trying is to cut through the plastic as far inside the recess as I can get a dremel tool, so that I can get the cover off. Then grab the studs above the nut and work the nut off the stud. Once the nuts are off I can bondo the little cone of plastic back on to the cover, and hopefully chase the threads on each stud and lock in place by either glueing or by tightening a thin nut on the stud, up against the chassis before the cover goes back on.
I'm wondering if anyone else has run into the issue, and if so how did they fix it? Or if anyone has had this cover off to change the fuel filter, do they recall what these studs look like underneath? Is there any accessibility to the heads?

Thanks
Paul.

 

Paul, that's a good thing to change the filter. Makes the fuel pump live longer. good for injectors too. Obviously not been done since the fasteners are welded closed.
I had similar problems but was lucky to just get the nuts and bolts out without the nut plate turning in the chassis. Darned dissimilar metal electrolysis.

Here's another suggestion. Break them off or cut off bolt and push it up inside away from the hole so you can get the panel off. Then get some HD sheet metal screws and use those to replace the panel. Works.

Good luck.

 

Thanks. That seems a little easier than my proposed method. I'll give it a try next weekend.

 

Fixed! I removed the old nuts by slotting them each side with a dremel grinding attachment. Once the cover was off I could see that the studs appeared to be press fitted from the outside into the chassis. I stopped further rotation by staking them with a hammer & chisel around the edge of the fit. Then, using a friends 6M -1.00 die nut chased the threads, lubed everything with never-sieze, and put it back together with new nuts & washers from Lowes. These I think are just regular steel, but I'll get the original stainless nuts with the captured washers eventually. And the fuel filter did get changed.