800 Rear crossmember/body mount

[Doug Rasmussen <DougRasmussen@domain.elided>]

Message text written by "Myron Ware"
>  My rear bumper has seemed loose since I got the truck, so I thought 
I'd replace the bolts holding it all together.  The twobumper  
mounting brackets are bolted to the rear crossmember, the body tub is 
also mounted to this crossmember.  There is a bed support that runs 
the width of the back end above the crossmember.  This support is 
bolted to the cross member at the main frame rails on each side.  The 
problem is that the body tub mounting bolts also go through this 
support to hold the body down, allowing the bed's sheetmetal to 
effectively hide the nut for the bolt that holds the rear cross 
member to the main frame rails.  There, that's about as clear as mud, 
right? :)  Of course, this crossmember-to-framerail bolt is loose on 
each side.  My dilemma is that I either have to drill a small access 
hole in the bed's sheetmetal, or loosen the body mounts back there 
and hope I can lift the tub enough to get to the nuts.  Is it okay to 
just loosen the rear bed bushing mounts, lift the tub up somehow to 
access the nut, then put it back together?  It seems like the mody 
might get tweaked a bit by doing this.  I'd prefer not to do any 
sheetmetal damage, but I don't have the means to lift the tub as a 
unit and go about replacing all the body bushings at this time (which 
would be my preferred course of action).  Please cc: to me directly, 
as I've got a trip planned this weekend.<


Myron,

  I had the same problem with my 800.  My solution was to weld the loose
bolts permanently in place.  Of course, that makes removal impossible
without lifting the body or torching said bolts.   Nothing is really lost
by the welding though,  cause you can't access the bolts anyway without
lifting the body.

  Incidently, that rear crossmember is notorious for rusting out.    Mine
is thin where the bumper brackets bolt on.  I made two plates that fit on
the inside so  the crossmember is sandwiched between the plate and bumper
bracket on each side.

  I view the rear crossmember situation on 800's as one of those annoying
things about Scouts that can take a lot of effort to correct.   Follow-on
owners will never appreciate the effort  because they would never expect
such a stupid thing to happen in the first place.

Doug