2 replies to this topic

[t@z]

Ok people need some help….

My intention was to fit coilovers to my clubman and I was doing ok until I came to fit the front brackets.

Upon inspection we noticed that the old brackets had been welded on soooo thinking that we could just angle grind them and bolt the spax brackets on in replacement we went on with that plan..

How wrong we were, once we got the old ones off we found that the threads for the brackets were well sorta buggered, although some were just a bit delicate and we didn’t want to force them in and risk losing the threads

After finding this out we decided to see what nuts we could get in and weld down the sides…. So my current situation is this:

1. On the passenger side we go the top left and bottom right in but not started welding that yet

2. The drivers’ side is the pain. We managed only to get one bolt in I think on the bottom right or left. My friend tried to weld down the side but he said that it wouldn’t work, can’t remember why something about the metal behind.

So this is where I’m very stuck. My welding friend said we should re-tap the holes for 10m bolts but apparently in order to tap to 10mm bolts you require a 8.8mm drill piece…now where do you get one of them from hmm…

My friend though on the forum supermotolee says that tapping should be the last resort?

I don’t mind paying to get a proper shop to fit them, as W&P are only about 20 mins away (if they can even do it) but how do I transport a car with no front wheels or suspension???

Its like one thing after another and this is my biggest obstacle and to be honest I haven’t got a clue how to even begin to fix it and what’s the correct way to go about doing it

Any advice is appreciated, I know bit of a long post but not to boring to read I hope

(if it goes to a shop I may get them to replace the lower arms and rubbers)

[Jammy]

I don't know how suitable this would be, but what about welding the Spax brackets on?

If you then want some addtional support, drill out the thread on the captive nut, so you can get a bolt right though, then use an orindary bolt on the other side. Not sure how well this will work as I can't remember where the captive nuts are!

Also, you might want to use a spreader plate behind the brakcet, to stop any chance of the inner wing cracking (I think I've heard about this happening once with coil overs).

Worst comes to worst, line up the bracket where it should sit (in line with the holes), and just weld it in a couple of places, this should at least hold it for you to transport it to somewhere where they can fit them for you.

[Dan]

In my opinion the right way to repair this is to drill out and retap the captive nut plates one size up. Don't go metric. This will probably be a big change in sizes and will as such remove more of the nut plate than you need to, weakening it. You need to use the next size imperial thread, which I believe is 5/16 unf? Or it might be 3/8, you'll work it out. The other advantage of this is that imperial threads mostly need sensibly sized holes while metric threads always seem to need a hole that is impractical or impossible to drill. If you insist on doing this the metric way then you will be able to get the right size drill bit from the engineering shop who supply the tap to you. Or any good engineering shop, Tunes are a good chain of engineers suppliers. If you try to botch the wrong drill bit through the hole you will mess the thread up totally and you'll have to remove and fit new nut plates. It can be done but it's nasty, the plates are I think available as parts on their own.

Then you will need to get the correct size and material screws. You will need high tensile steel, don't get screws from Halfords or B&Q get some proper ones from an engineer or a screw factor.

I have done this to some of the screws in my shock mounts. When I got my new heritage shell I followed some good advice and removed the shock mounts (and everything else bolted to it) as they are bolted on before primer and so there is no paint behind them. Removing them (and all the hinges) means that you can get some paint or protection behind them. Sadly there was a big blob of weld *woman of ill repute* on the end of one of the screws which destroyed the thread on the way out.

I only adapted the one thread which was damaged, but in your case I would say to retap all of them.

As Jammy said, there is some evidence to suggest you should reinforce the flitch where the bracket attaches with a spreader plate of decent size, bolted around or welded in place. Don't go too thick with it obviously as it will move the top shock mount away from the car which will affect the suspension performance.