I was driving around today when I had to do an emergency stop and heard a bang and the steering went wobbly. Pulled over immediately and thought a driveshaft had come undone or something. Had a look at the drivers wheel and it was touching the arch. Had a look underneath and found that the rear bolt was missing and the bushing wasn't there and the bar was out of the bracket.

I found the bushing in the road but no bolt.

I had to call the AA and they put another bolt through the hole but the threads had gone.

I had removed the bar a week ago to change gearbox and they all tightened up fine.

The AA man also found that the front one on the passengers side was almost out too. He tightened it down and it was fine.

Has anyone else had this problem of the bolts undoing themselves? I didn't use any locate as I didn't have any, but surely they wouldn't work themselves loose after 40 or so miles?

Also, should I get another ARB bracket or try to use a bigger bolt and re tap this one?

Thanks

Edited 22 February, 201610 yr by dixy

At least the drivers side bracket is removable, I'd take it off and weld new nuts onto it if you can. I've seen the threads strip on them when people have over tightened them.

Don't the bolts usually have a spring washer on them? If you didn't refit that or the spring washer was knackered then its possible the vibration couldn't worked them loose.

If you're good with a pair of pliers and a 1/4" socket set, you can get a nut on the passenger side ones if the threads have stripped. I stripped one of the captives when I put the subframe on mine.

i did think of using new nuts on the drivers side bracket as its easily accessible but the passengers side isn't. I will have a good look from underneath tomorrow and see.

There is just a flat washer on all 4 bolts. Good shout with the spring washers, I will get some new bolts and washers as the threads don't look too good so hopefully they will hold in better with some loctite

Thanks guys

Got new high tensile bolts Spring washers and flats washers from a local distributor for an absolute bargain price and I still have 96 spare of each in case they do decide to fall off again :)

The rear nut on the bracket side had 0 threads left so the bolt went right through. I will be getting hold of another bracket in the next few days but I have used 2 locking nuts on top of each other and I don't think the bolt will be going anywhere.

The new bolts had "sharp" threads and the old bolts are very dull so all the new ones went in nicely.

For the price of the new bolts etc I wouldn't be in any rush to re use any old ones any time soon.