Removing rear plastic undertray

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Mickeyluv
still on the production line
Posts: 30
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2015 6:48 pm
Passat model: B5.5

Removing rear plastic undertray

Post by Mickeyluv »

I'm trying to remove the rear tray that runs across the car just in front of the fuel tank. As an ex-colleague used to say "If you're trying you're not doing" and that's where I'm at. One nut removed, one that seemed easy that just sheared off and the other two that are recessed are just solid rust with no chance of moving them or getting any kind of purchase. The car is 13 years old and it looks like the tray has never been removed. I've soaked the nuts with penetrating oil but no heating possible.

How have others dealt with this? With the sheared bolt what have you done to fix this? I really can't face stripping out the seat and carpets in order to weld in a blind stud and don't have a threaded insert kit to fit a bush. I'm out of ideas right now and could do with some inspiration.

EDIT: After a night's sleep I came back to this and had better success. The penetrating oil had got to work and I thoroughly cleaned off the projecting threads. Then I chose a smaller socket than 10mm (next size down in imperial) and getly tapped this onto the corroded nut to give better purchase and then gently 'worked' the nut backwards and forwards as it unscrewed. I have some large-head commercial vehicle pop-rivets and I'll use one of those to replace the broken stud, but first need to replace the rear axle brake lines. The rusted nuts will be replaced with stainless penny washers with stainless nylocs.
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