At 08:39 AM 4/24/00 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi Listers,
>
>Having spent the greater part of last week's evenings contemplating the
>underside of my Tiger while comfortably reclined on my creeper (I was
>putting a new exhaust together), I've discovered a number of interesting
>features of my car, among which is the fact that the rear spring mount
>reinforcing pieces (toward the center of the car) are cracked. What is the
>best way to make this problem go away? Cut/grind the old pieces off and weld
>on new doublers? Thicker doublers? Gussets?
>
>Regards,
>Theo
We (STOA) published a Tech Tip on this subject last March (99). The repair
depends entirely on the extent of the damage you find. The simple crack of
the 1/16" thick lap tab to the "X" is easily welded but is likely to crack
again. I prefer to replace this piece with a 1/8 thick bent plate that
also includes a hole for the spring bolt. The problem is that in many
cases, the fatigue has failed the original reinforcement and is now
spreading out, working on the spot welds that attach the rear portion of
the unibody frame to the body pan in front of the rear wheels. The Tech
Tip documents this failure mode to show what happens when it is ignored and
my recomendations for repair. I can make a copy from my archives for you
or I can talk to Kevin about attaching this to the STOA web page. Let me
know what your schedule is to obtain this info.
Tom
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