John Deere 3203 Grille Cover

[nmlackritz]

Newbie here looking for advice from the pros...

This weekend, the battery on my JD 3203 died. The manual suggests two ways to remove the battery --- lifting it out vertically or removing the front grille.

I tried removing the front grille, but encountered some difficulty. There are 5 bolts that hold the grille from below. Three came out, but two are giving me trouble --- the bolts turn but do not come out of the grille. I have not been able to remove the grille so I cannot be 100% certain of this hypothesis, but I am guessing that the plastic grille has a captive nut for each bolt and I am guessing that these captive nuts are spinning when I try to loosen the bolt.

Does anyone have a suggestion for how to get these bolts out? Any help would be appreciated.

And, yes, I was able to get my battery out by lifting it out vertically, so no worries on that front.

Neal

 

[beenthere]

:welcome:

If they are spinning, sometimes I've been able to wedge something in between (just below the head of the bolt) to put some pressure on the captive nut to get it to stop turning as the bolt is turned out.
The jdparts schematic just shows the bolts, nothing about the captive nuts that I can see.