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I bought a complete cab earlier this year for my 78 Sno Fighter & just got around to disassembling it. It's pretty solid for this area but still has some rust here & there. Anyway I just removed the doors & broke off 4 of the 12 bolts that mount the door hinges to the cab. My question is, are the plates that are inside the cab replaceable? I see they move around in there but I haven't taken it apart far enough to try & remove them. Anyone else dealt with this problem?
I would put a few bolts in the holes that are still good to tighten and steady the plate then drill and remove the broken bolts. I think the plate takes a good deal more to replace. Just what I would try but i'm sure there will be other ideas.
The plates were not available separately. The only way you could get them from Ford was to buy the "front body pillar".
Just out of curiosity I checked and no dealer or obsolete supplier has any.
Oh man, that's not a good sign....I'm not worried about getting some spares as I have a couple junk trucks I could cut up, but if they weren't even available they probably weren't meant to be replaceable.
Well I have the cab completely disassembled now & I don't think there's any way to remove these plates w/o cutting/welding. Not good, looks like I'll be drilling & tapping for a while.
Try and weld a bolt on top of the broken bolt first. Sometimes the heat from welding breaks the rust loose. Then use the new bolt to turn the broken one out.