OK Fellows, here is the problem of the day (de jour, if you will)
The right front spring mount (receiver, box, or whatever the correct name
of it is) has troubles. This is the part that hold the bolt that goes
through the front eye of the spring on my '67.
The one that came off of the car has been attacked on both sides of the eye
mounting area with a chisel, only partially on one side, and nearly through
on the other. I don't want to risk anything with suspension, so I turned to
use a spare I got with used spring. The problem with this one is that the
two seized nuts that appear to be brazed or welded onto my original, are
missing on this new mount. This is the front nut set where the bolt drops
down from the passenger compartment as opposed to the rear set which the
bolt goes up from underneath the car.
Well I ran to the local parts house, bolt in hand, and I was going to use a
replacement nut and seize it with locktight. When I took the bolt there, it
seems that the threads are not SAE, so they didn't have a nut to fit it in
Grade 8. It was not 3/8 inch fine thread which is what it appeared to be.
Just for giggles, I tried to se if they had any grade that fit it, and none
did. Well, when I got home, I noticed something else, on the other side of
the car (the side I've not worked on yet) one of the bolts that goes from
under the car and into the seized nut in the body was missing on that side.
Does anyone know a source for these nuts and bolts. The nut's outer sized
appears to be in between 11/16 and 3/4 (is there an 23/32?) I wasn't as
worried about the missing nuts (no comments here guys) as I am about the
missing bolt. It seems that I can replace the front set with any similar
size grade 8 fine thread nut and bolt set as long as I use locktight.
Conversely, I guess I could try and break the weld of the nuts on my bad
mount and use them? What do you guys think? Is there anything wrong about
either going with a different nut and bolt set for the missing nuts side, or
do I really need to replace the whole mount? If so, any sources out there,
I don't see it in the catalogs.
I do worry about the missing bolt on the other side though, since the treads
seem to be non standard here, and there is no way that I can tell to access
the nut that receives this bolt. I called Moss (there open this late) and
they have no idea where I can get this bolt, and I don't want to buy it from
Vicky Brit because of their shipping charges for small orders. Any ideas
what I'm looking for and where I can get it?. Have I found something
Whitworth on my car, that would seem odd on a car this late?
Oh yea, thanks to everybody's help, the right side spring went on with no
trouble, I just need to tighten everything up when I all of the bolts in
place.
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Patton Dickson - Madison, MS - http://members.xoom.com/spridget/
67 AH Sprite
65 Corvair 110/4sp Monza Vert
23 Model T Speedster
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