removing floor mounted wheel chair anchor rails

[BarnYardCamp]

I'm making slow progress getting the floor up. I was hoping that after I got the old plywood up that I would be able to run my saws-all between the metal floor and the bottom of the wheel chair anchor bars...that didn't work. The anchor bars are bolted down about every 4 inches, inside the bus the bolt heads look like torx drive, most are incrusted with debris. Any suggestions on getting these out will be appreciated.

[Simplicity]

Two things:

First, using a screw extractor or drilling them out might be a fairly clean and simple method.

Secondly, I am a school bus driver. These rails are used to secure the wheelchairs and seatbelts to the bus. Thinking way ahead about how you're going to provide seating and seatbelts for others, you might want to hold onto those and re-use them.

I found salvaging as many things as I could from the bus came in handy along the way. When I'm all done, I'll probably make a run to the scrap yard and the dump with 90% of the leftover stuff.

The one thing I really regret is getting rid of the front passenger seat and barrier in front of it. It would have made a perfect passenger seat!

Hope this helps,

Steve

[Danjo]

Best tool is an angle grinder with a cutting disk. Those are grade 8 or grade 10 bolts and they pretty much instantly dull drill bits. Wear your safety glasses and gloves for this part. Lots of sharp metal filings and hot metal bits while doing this.

The easiest way, if you can reach them is to climb underneath and cut the nuts off.

Alternatively, run the cutting disk parallel in the slot, through the center of the bolt. You will need to angle it a little to each side while you do this and eventually you will cut the head of the bolt off,

I used a pry bar to get under the rail to help breaK the bolt heads off when it was close.

[Simplicity]

Originally Posted by Danjo

Best tool is an angle grinder with a cutting disk. Those are grade 8 or grade 10 bolts and they pretty much instantly dull drill bits. Wear your safety glasses and gloves for this part. Lots of sharp metal filings and hot metal bits while doing this.

The easiest way, if you can reach them is to climb underneath and cut the nuts off.

Alternatively, run the cutting disk parallel in the slot, through the center of the bolt. You will need to angle it a little to each side while you do this and eventually you will cut the head of the bolt off,

I used a pry bar to get under the rail to help breaK the bolt heads off when it was close.

Agreed, and good points about bolt grades.

[BarnYardCamp]

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking about buying a nut splitter, but I think they are more for mild steel, not the hard stuff like grades 8 and 10. Most of the nuts are accessible from under the bus...but not at the moment with so much snow on the ground. I'll try the angle grinder first. I wonder if the cut wheels will get loaded up with aluminum from the rails.
PPE is absolutely a must...Hopefully I'll be able to get something done this weekend.

[musigenesis]

I saw a video some time ago where a guy used a bimetal hole arbor saw (without the pilot bit) to cut through the track around each bolt. Once this was done the track came right up, and then the bolt heads were much better exposed to be cut off easily with a cutting wheel.

[Danjo]

If you can get one, a full face shield is good to have when you get into heavy angle grinder action

[BarnYardCamp]

I got the 4 short rails up today...they are 8 - 10 inches long each with 4 bolts each...
used the angle grinder for the first one, the grinder wheel did pick up some aluminum which may impact it's grinding abilities. After tapping on the other three with a hammer I was actually able to get the saws-all blade between the rail and the metal floor. 1 Blade lasted through 8 bolts. Maybe I should try higher quality blades. Anyway, took a little over an hour but progress is progress.