It was rusty, i sheared the bolt that holds the rubber muffer hangers to the body. How would I go about replacing the bolt.

I have a 03 mini s that eats snow and salt 4 months a year.

 

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...and-broke.html This might help. Good luck.

 

 

weld on a new bolt?

Or drill out the old and thread in something new . . .

I would imagine this is a problem the average muffler shop deals with several times each day. I'd swing by one and see if they'd fix just this issue for me . . . set me up with a new hanger.

 

Unfortunately, what you broke was a stud that's welded to the body. They are not strong, so don't beat yourself up. Fixing it is not easy: you can weld a bolt to the frame rail, remove the sound deadening and punch out the remainder of the stud, or just don't use that stud. Be sure that your other three hangers and the one nut on that hanger are in good shape. It's not ideal, but you can get away with it.

 

I had bolts shear off too .... luckily there are 4 holding rubber hanger and two looks like enough.... If you look under flooring you can see plate on inside of car which these bolts are attached too... I juts didnt want to knock off plate and have to re-weld or re-attach in some way...

 

That stinks that they break so easily. I broke one, but it was well near the end of the stud so there was enough left to still get a nut back on it. That metal is really soft.

This has been troubling me becuase some exhausts require that those hanger be unbolted and I have no confidence that I can unbolt mine without breaking them. That limits exhaust choices.

 

Exhaust bolts are always a problem since they're under the car and exposed to all the road water. I've learned over the years to always pre-soak any exhaust fastener with Kroil or PBBlaster (Kroil is much better) overnight if possible to help prevent breaking bolts. So far, I've been lucky doing this and haven't broken anything in a long time.

Eric

 

I drilled through the bolt in the boot and will replace with a similar bolt.
The two bolts shown are for the outermost hanger supports.

 

DonJulio, thanks for posting that. I don't know why, but I never thought that the stud attachment points were accessible from inside, so I never looked. Those look easy to fix. If only the inner ones were as easy we would be all set.

 

I just stumbled on a thing called a Nutsert. It might be useful for the inner hangers. Here is the video (about half way through) where I saw it
http://www.motorator.com/videos/1476
Anyone ever use this that can comment on if it would work well for this exhaust situation?

 

I realize im reviving a dead thread, but this happened to me the other week, and I stumbled across this thread while searching about a different issue.
I fixed this by pickign up the same size bolt from lowes, drilling out the old one with a proper one to tap with ( slightly smaller, you can tap this as the bolt is welded on) and threading the new bolt on with a lock washer behind the head. Works just like I had never sheared it.

 

Thanks for keeping the thread alive with your solution soccerbummer1104. As these cars age, this problem will become more common and it will be interesting to see the creative solution folks come up with. By the way, I still have not replaced my rattling exhaust so I have nothing more to contribute.