loose door striker?

[FordeatinZ71]

my dad's 98 C1500 RCSB has a loose door striker on the driver's side. tighten it you say? Nothing doing. it just spins. I'm thinking whatever mounting boss it screws into is ripped loose. has anyone had This problem before? how, exactly, do you fix this? it won't come out and even if it did, I bet the mount would fall down into the abyss where I can't get it.

[someotherguy]

The nut inside the door jamb is loose anyway, it's just a plate that goes inside there. You are correct if you remove the striker bolt the plate will fall down. Not because it's broken...just because that's how they are. When replacing the striker bolt on these you have to pull the interior panel to access the plate and hold it in place.

Maybe it loosened up and stayed loose long enough the threads are toast so it can't tighten? I'm sure you tried pulling the striker bolt towards you to make the plate contact the body so you could tighten the bolt.

EDIT - by the way if you end up needing to replace that plate, boneyard one from an extended cab. Save yourself a lot of hassle with the interior trim, since you can reach those by pulling out the storage pocket in the back seat area.

Richard

[FordeatinZ71]

thanks so much Richard! no I haven't tried pulling it towards me while tightening...Ill try that...but the way it appears I'm gonna be cutting the striker to get it out and replacing the striker and mount plate. also, many thanks for the tip on finding an extended cab...will do! I'm just glad its not welded into the cab like I thought it was!

[someotherguy]

Probably no need to cut anything unless it's horribly seized into the plate. I'd bet once you get the interior trim panel out of the way (remember the B pillar has to come inwards at the bottom first, so you can unhook the interlocking tabs from the top piece across the back window) you can probably get in there and hold the plate with vise grips while you remove the striker bolt.

Richard

[FordeatinZ71]

this is a W/T...no trim panels. the closest thing it has to a trim panel is the speaker, and you can still reach up behind there and grab the mounting plate...