O.K. folks, I am one who has plenty of experience working on my own vehicles. I know not to force things, or get carried away when something is stuck. That said, I have to wonder what kind of metal some of the nuts and bolts appear to be made out of on these trucks. Day one from purchase, My neighbour, who helped me get the truck home, told me I had a brake light out. O.K., no problem, I break out one phillips screwdriver, and proceed to remove the two screws holding the cover in place. With no effort whatsoever, one disintegrates it's head. O.K., so I found a somewhat rusty screw, and now needed to replce it. As a preventative nature, I replace all four screws on the taillights. Job done, lights work, and I'm happy. Fast forward several days. I decide that it would be a good idea to baseline the oil. I get the proper oil filter, and head back to the house. I drove the minitruck, so it would be fully warmed up, so that I would get all of the crud out of the engine. Out comes the tools, and I select the proper size socket, and insure that it's set properly to remove the drain plug. It took me ONE moderate attempt at loosening the drain plug, to render it completely rounded off, with a now small sprinkling of metal shavings in the catch pan. I tried several alternatives to get the plug off, to no avail. I sulk back into town, to buy a damaged bolt remover kit. I finally get it off, so I can then go back into town for a third time, to match up a replacement plug. This weekend, I plan on doing some more work to the truck, and am finding myself a bit apprehensive to shredding more bolts. Is anyone else finding the nuts and bolts on their trucks to be softer than expected?
I sheared off one of the four bolts holding my steering column to the support under the dash. I'll take the blame for that, though - I can be a hamfisted brute sometimes. D'oh! Haven't really encountered any stubborn fasteners. Quite the opposite, actually... living in Minnesota, it's really a treat to work on a vehicle that hasn't been bathed in road salt its entire life. Colin
This sounds unusual to me. We work on these trucks all the time and rarely have problems with the fastners. Actually we often comment on how most of them are easy to remove and are resistant to corrosion. You may have gotten a truck from Northern Japan that was subjected to allot of salt and road grime. Or maybe someone else has done some work on the truck and used inferior fastners. I have heard of these trucks being used in China and other asian countries. It's possible some changed could be done when exported.
Hopefully, the bolt thing will end. It does bother me some, when I trash bolts - espcecially since I'm not exactly a person who has much "excess" upper body strength.
