Door bolts coming loose?

[Gangstead]

I've had the Bronco for a year and have cycled the doors off and back on at least 6 times. Last week I took them off for the first time in about 3-4 months and on all four doors the bottom bolt was barely finger tight. The upper bolts were all perfectly snug. I use the socket wrench from the supplied tool kit every time.

Has anyone else noticed the door bolts working themselves loose?

The obvious answer is probably that I didn't tighten them enough, but this hasn't happened any of the other times. Also if there were a tendency for them to work loose in one direction (like only when my kids slam the doors) I would expect it to be something like the lower bolts on the driver side and upper bolts on the passenger side since the slams would be coming from different directions.

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[Headsong]

Always the top passenger side for me.

 

[BWepps]

Bottom bolt on front passenger side door is always working itself loose on mine.

 

[Gangstead]

Anybody tried threadlocker?

 

[SilverSurfer]

I've had this, I even had a bolt fall out when my wife got in passenger side. I'm hoping that I just didn't tighten them enough after replacing doors. I did get the clicking noise as a warning, so something to watch out for.

 

[rtazz17]

it wasnt clicking like crazy? If mine are finger tight they click hard.

 

[Gangstead]

Definitely no clicking with the bottom bolts loose. Maybe it only clicks if the top bolt is loose?

 

[pequigah]

This seems to be a common problem. As stated above, the clicking noise when opening and closing is a dead giveaway that they need tightened.

 

[Razorbak86]

I've had the Bronco for a year and have cycled the doors off and back on at least 6 times. Last week I took them off for the first time in about 3-4 months and on all four doors the bottom bolt was barely finger tight. The upper bolts were all perfectly snug. I use the socket wrench from the supplied tool kit every time.

Has anyone else noticed the door bolts working themselves loose?

The obvious answer is probably that I didn't tighten them enough, but this hasn't happened any of the other times. Also if there were a tendency for them to work loose in one direction (like only when my kids slam the doors) I would expect it to be something like the lower bolts on the driver side and upper bolts on the passenger side since the slams would be coming from different directions.

I addressed this on another thread. Hope this helps...

If you tighten the bolts to the recommended torque of 22 ft-lbs (30 Nm), they won’t back out. That seems a little tighter than you might intuitively expect if doing it purely by feel, but it is not so tight that it will cause the bolts to plastically deform or break. A torque wrench is your friend here, and even if you don’t like using one routinely, you should do it at least once to help mentally calibrate your own intuitive feel.

 

[Ground_zero298]

My doors have been on and off multiple times, over 30 if I had to guess. First 3-5 times the bolts would loosen up over a day or 2 and I would retighten them. Now they stay put on the first tightening. So for me they ended up working themselves out.

 

[BroncoSarge]

I Periodically check them after reinstalling my doors. Its part of my routine maintenance now.

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