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This past weekend I began installing my recently purchased 5th wheel prep package. What should have been one of the easiest parts of the install, removing the bed bolts, turned into a 3 day mess.
After searching the interwebs about others who have had this problem and the remedy, I learned that I apparently am the only one. At least for the boxed frame 2017+ Superdutys.
FYI, I had the bed Line-X'd when it was only a few days old. They removed the bolts and I believe may have been a little aggressive re'installing them... or... I later learned the captured nuts come unthreaded, running the bolts into them creates alot of load on the capture plates. They may have been partially bent from the factory...
After crawling under the truck and bending up the angled capture plate (made if sheet metal), this is what the nut looks like:
As you can see, there is no way to get a wrench on the nut. I tried to fabricate a wrench from some plate metal that slid in between those brackets only to have the nuts still round out.
Long story short, the ONLY way I could find (including an air chisel trying to split the nut), was with a plasma cutter. It made short work of the nut. I had to grind the head off the bolt, raise the bed, then cut the nut. Well, I didn't, my son in law with the plasma cutter did!
4 new bolts and 4 new captured nuts ($67.21) later, its back together.
Here are the part numbers if anyone needs them, they are for the middle 4 bolts on a shortbed.
FYI, I had the bed Line-X'd when it was only a few days old. They removed the bolts and I believe may have been a little aggressive re'installing them... or... I later learned the captured nuts come unthreaded, running the bolts into them creates alot of load on the capture plates. They may have been partially bent from the factory...
My understanding is that the bed bolts are Torque to Yield (TTY) bolts, making them only suitable for single usage, requiring replacement at each cycle.
That's been a topic of debate, nowhere in the installation instructions does it say to install new bolts.
Regardless, this thread was meant more as a heads up to anyone planning on removing your bed, (that may live in a state that uses salt in the winter), not to start back up the debate of " to use new bolts or to reuse the old bolts"...
My understanding is that the bed bolts are Torque to Yield (TTY) bolts, making them only suitable for single usage, requiring replacement at each cycle.
If a bolt ain't broke, it can be reused. Ford has a lot of lawyers covering their butts, and at $67+ for four of them, it's also a good money-maker for them. Of course they will tell you to buy new bolts & nuts. There are a surprisingly large number of steps in the service manual where they want you to throw away the hardware...
