Sometimes when your working on the A-arms on a Jetta the captive nut breaks out. Captive nut means there is a nut inside the sub-frame that the A-arm bolt screws into. This nut is held in place poorly and if the A-arm bolt seizes into the captive nut when you go to remove the bolt the captive nut breaks out of position making it difficult to get the bolt out, and impossible to put the a-arm bolt back in until the captive nut is repaired. I’ve had this happen a few times and decided to document the repair to help others who have this issue.

Here what a captive nut should look like. The picture is a little fuzzy but you can see the threads in the lower hole.

Here’s what it looks like when the nut breaks out. Obviously no way to put a bolt in there. If your trying to do some repair like A-arm bushings or something and this happens your car will be disabled till this is fixed. If you can’t do this yourself or don’t have access to a welder, then you can pull the “K-member” (part that A-arms and rack-and-pinion bolt to) pretty easily to take it to a shop with a welder to do this repair.

Cut out an access door.

Bend the door open.

Get a bolt and nut and use the bolt to hold the nut in place.

Weld the nut in place.

Close the door and weld it up.

 

Paint the welded part to prevent rust.