In a message dated 97-07-11 23:24:52 EDT, jfcowan@sj.znet.com (John Cowan)
writes:
<< I'm not at all clear on what the bolts screw into. It is either a nut
welded to the street side of the inner fender (as the good side seems to
be) or a nut dropped into the little metal housing which is welded over the
bolt hole on the street side of the inner fender. >>
There is a "nut cage" welded to the bottom of the inner fender, and a square
nut is captured inside the nut cage. when the bolt and nut rust, the square
nut will spin when you turn the bolt. It deforms the sides of the nut cage
enough to spin. Sometimes the weld on one side of the nut cage breaks. You
can see a drawing of the nut cage and bolt in the body section of the popular
TR3 suppliers catalogs. I have had some luck with taking a vice grips, and
squeezing the sides of the nut cage (the loose sides that dont have the ears
that weld on) and in this manner holding both the cage and the nut, while
removing the bolt. You can then, after the bolt is removed, pry up one side
of the nut cage and slide a new square bolt into the cage, and then bend it
shut again. Obviously, if there is a lot of rust, the nut cage will
disintegrate. Also, if the nut and bolt are just welded together with rust,
you have to remove the nut cage to cut off the old nut and bolt. In this
case, your options are to weld on a new nut cage, or to become somebody's
future DPO ad simply use a nut under the fender, and hold it with a wrench
when you tighten or loosen the bolt. Of course, you will use stainless steel
fasteners so you don't have the same problem 5 years from now. Actually, the
nuts under the hood fastener bracket are easy enough to get to that a nut
cage isn't that important.
Good luck,
Paul
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