[Spridgets] Front Shock mount problem - 67 Sprite

[Phil]

Good evening!  

 

I have an occasional pop
in the front end on my 67
Sprite that lead me to conclude it was time to
replace my shocks as they are
likely as old as the car.  I know from being a long time lurker here
that
these needed to come from Peter and so I made that happen.  

 

As I removed
the
passenger side shock, I noticed that the inside hole was rather egg
shaped.  I went to compare this with the
driver side and then observed that
the mounting bolts were different
sizes.  It appears that someone has
drilled
and tapped the frame to a 7/16ths from a 3/8ths and then did
the same
modification to the shock to be able to mount the unit again.  Wow.  I
would
prefer not to drill out the nicely painted unit from Peter but this must
not
be that rare as drilled out units are not valid new cores.  I suppose I could
send the drilled out one
back and have it rebuilt and not use the proper one
but that would still leave
me with an egg shaped hole.  

 

I looked thru the
archives
and found an exchange between Peter and Mike Gigante about a similar
problem
and I think he was planning to use a treaded insert to get back to the
proper
size.  I like that idea and would like to
have someone weld in the gap
between the insert and the egg part of the hole
but would really like to know
if this is likely to work.  I have looked at a helicoil but these seem a
bit
thin and dont seem to have the proper thread count.  

 

Any advice?
Thanks, Phil

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