Gents,

Early this year, I stripped out one of the captive nuts at the top of the transmission end of the power plant frame on my ‘99. I was torquing down one of the long bolts, and the wrench started moving with less resistance. I stopped. There wasn’t time to figure out a fix as I had a track event coming up, so I left it and crossed my fingers. I’ve had no issues. I plan to do the repair at the end of the season.

How do I get the captive nut plate out? I know that piece moves around—it has to be able to—but I’ve never actually had it fall out. I did a quick search on ebay for a used one, but I don’t see anyone selling just the nut plate, although there are quite a few PPFs for sale.

I assumed I'd take it out and have a helicoil installed . Irregardfull, it has to come out to either be repaired or replaced.

Any words of wit would be greatly appreciated.

 

Well, there must be a million of those things lying around, I have three from just my own cars - they aren't the hottest item in the 'for sales'. That would be my starting point - quick, simple and (probably) cheap, maybe even free!

 

The plate doesn’t come off, they’re riveted on at the factory. That said, if you took it to a welding shop or some place that does metal fab, with the bolt, I’m sure someone halfway competent could cut the old nut off and weld a new one to the captive plate. It will lose the galvanizing around the weld area of course.

 

That plates slides--it has to in order to properly adjust the orientation/height of the transmission. Those rivets keep it from falling out/off, but it's not actually "riveted" in place. Pic from an ebay auction...



I can't be the first person to have a stripped out captive nut, but it seems you're both telling me it's easier to replace the PPF than do some kind of repair. I'm having a hard time believing that.

Thanks and be safe out there,

 

I know that the plate slides.

What you missed was that I was simply pointing out that it is permanently installed at the factory, and thus not available as a separate piece. They are built with what is called a shoulder rivet, which allows the piece sandwiched by the rivet to pivot, or slide under the head of the rivet.

Believe what you want about the repair method, but the nut you stripped was simply TIG welded to that plate at the factory along with the second one, the whole steel piece was galvanized, and then it was riveted to the aluminum PPF piece.

If you’re hellbent on repairing it, the method I suggested is most similar to how it was manufactured. A helicoil could work but would be an inferior repair method to replacing with a new nut. As GM pointed out, replacing the entire PPF is going to be simpler and faster, since just about any halfway decent repair will require you to remove the whole PPF assembly anyway. Do with this information what you will.

 

I yield.

 

Quickest/dirtiest would be to get a long reach drill bit of the right size, smooth bore the stripped nut, and use a longer bolt with a new nut on top of the reamed-out one. Could likely be done in place, if you can fish a nut and wrench up above the PPF.