I went to change the rear lower control arm bushings on my 2007 Saturn Ion. For those that aren't familiar with the design, the rear bushing is vertical and the bolt that passes through it also holds the rear of the engine cradle to the body. The bolt is threaded into a captive bolt that's held in the body by a sheet metal cage. Both the passenger and driver's side nuts are spinning in their cage. I can feel the cage and nut on the passenger side but there's no way to jam a screwdriver in between the cage and nut, just no room. On the driver's side it's worse. I can't even get a finger in there. I could cut the bolts and drop the subframe but I'm still not sure how I'd fix the problem. Since this design has been used on tons of GM vehicles I'm sure someone on here has run into this issue and can offer me a solution. The best part is the bolts won't retighten now so I'm committed to finishing this.
it's a pain, but on my old camaro i cut access to the caged nut and welded the nut to the body.
I know on the stupid piece of E36 M3 PT Cruiser that has the same problem, they were kind enough to stamp a circle in the floor where you had to cut. The edge was reinforced and everything, you just cut about 7/8 of the way around, opened it up like a soup can, did the work, then folded it back down, maybe gooped on some RTV over the gap and put the carpet back down.
In reply to patgizz:
This is what I'm envisioning having to do. At least I have it up on the hoist so I have decent access.
Can you get in from the top with a holesaw through the body?
In reply to Trans_Maro:
It's a possibility, I'll look at it again tomorrow. I'm done with it for tonight
OK let me first say I have never dealt with this, and hope I never have to deal with something like this and it makes me cringe even to have to think about having to deal with something like this but.................why would designers/engineers ever do this in the first place? Save money, limited space, nobody knew what they were doing? Seriously, what? Especially the PT Cruiser one. You have to cut through the floor to gain access ??!! Huh? That's got stupid stamped all over it. 
I've dealt with this a lot on second-gen F-body cars. The trick is through the top with a holesaw, then weld the nut in place, the heat will release the bolt.
The reason they do it is because the car is supposed to go together once, and quickly. With a PT Cruiser, you just throw the car away.
Shawn
I don't know that specific design, but what I've done before on those was to use the torch to cut an access slot large enough to fit a regular nut and the head of a wrench through. most recently was the front sway bar bolts for a saturn...
What usually happens on Subarus is cutting the access slot big enough and using a regular nut. It's pretty awful and I wish they wouldn't do it.
Feedyurhed wrote:
Especially the PT Cruiser one. You have to cut through the floor to gain access ??!! Huh? That's got stupid stamped all over it.
On the Neon it's based on, you had to order a NLA template to properly locate the hole, the PT design was an upgrade.
