Good morning. 2002 f-250 with the 7.3. my oil pan rusted through, and the prior owner slapped some RTV on the hole and called it good. I plan on doing some serious abuse to this truck, so I'm taking care of the small details first. I have a Moroso pan and gasket, and I know I have to lift the cab, so i have new body mounts incoming. in the meantime, I started to pull the bolts for my extended cab, and all 6 laughed at my craftsman impact (I would to, to be honest) and spun when I used a 4 ft cheater pipe. they have been thoroughly soaked in PB blaster, and I have zero idea where to go next, first time removing a cab, and for once YouTube has let me down since my bolts aren't on the bottom. and yes, i know fire is an option but we tried and the bushings almost immediately lit on fire and the PB blaster isn't helping that.

 

Sorry, Probably no help, but the bolts have loctite on them, Blue I believe, you may have to try an electric impact on them, between the loctite and the rust, it's either torch them or try to use a dremel with a cutting wheel, if the electric impact doesn't work.

 

I was under the impression, from the research that I have done, is that using an impact will immediately strip the bolts. Then you get into the stripping because you've got to try to hold the nut while you undo the bolt head. Mine also bolt from the bottom so all nuts are ABOVE. Let us know how you get them out. I too wanted to replace the body mounts, if the job can be done without lifting the cab. Limited resources as an apartment dweller.

 

my craftsman is a battery powered electric impact. Not the strongest but I haven’t had a failure till this project

 

My electric is a makita it has 3300fp. It pulled the compensator nut off my Harley with no problem. I have no idea how many foot pounds a battery operated one does.

 

The body bolts use caged nuts inside the cab. You will need to pull the seats in the back to access them, and being the smaller cab, probably the front seats too if there are mid mounts. Once you gain access you can put a socket on the caged nut, but you will need a helper to hold the wrench while you crank from below. This is why the manual says DO NOT use an impact. Even with a cheater the cages will break. You can heat the nut from inside, don't use penetrate as there is thread locker on them and wont do anything but start a fire when you heat it. If you have an air ratchet, that works best for this. Heat the nut and bolt cherry red from the inside, slam the socket and wrench on the nut and use the air ratchet to remove the bolt. This is how I got them out of my 2012, and I think this setup hasn't changed in decades.

For me the worst ones are the front radiator supports, I could not get the bolts out and left the original mounts in place as well as the mid mounts as they were stuck to the body and without getting the front mounts out, was unable to raise the cab high enough to get them out. On mine the front and rear cab mounts were the bad ones, so they did get replaced, the other two sets of mounts were still 100% intact, just rusty.

 

I WAS MISTAKEN! My bolts are threaded from inside the cab too. For some reason I thought they came from the underside. At some year (2010 and beyond) they bolted up from the Bottom which kinda makes more sense. Makes it easy to get at etc, etc.

 

Here's a pretty good video to watch if you haven't already.

 

The nuts are on the frame side? I suppose thats true, they were assembled differently back then, today the cabs are nearly complete when married to the chassis where they wouldn't be able to bolt it down from the inside.

 

I’ve watched that video a dozen times it’s helpful but my bolts aren’t moving at all I guess I will go get a bigger fuel bottle for my torch and get after it

 

Big impact and tighten till they snap?

 

Having just pulled the cab on a 99 I am confused here. On mine the bolts thread in from the top ie pull back the floor and pop the rubbers out and loosen from inside the truck. There is no nut at all but rather a plate that fits into the rubber on the bottom, that plate then slides inside of the plate on the top of the bushing so that they can't be overtightened, a fairly good idea until they rust together and make them joined for life. If the bolts wont budge I personally think your best bet is to cut the heads off of them and pound the daylights out of them until they fall out the bottom still attached to the plate.

 

Wow, didn't realize they made that big of a change on how the body mounts attach. Watching that video above reminds me of WHY I got rid of my 99. Oil pan was just about done and I didn't want to deal with it.

 

I still say to get a bigger electric impact gun. I my self would rather take the chance or stripping the threads out than to use a torch and set the truck on fire, but hey it's your truck, let us know how it works out for you....good luck