News of Fresh Disasters

[christopher storey]

Rashly I offered to lend my OTS S2 to a friend of mine when we all go on a tour of Ireland at the end of May . So, I thought I'd better do a few jobs I had put off, one of which was changing the handbrake pads. I got the calipers out, but could I get the left one back in through the rear suspension unit? After 6 hours of struggle, I gave up and decided to drop the suspension . The right radius arm came off its cup easily enough, and so did the left - bringing the whole cup, but not the mounting plate, with it !! Completely rotten . AAAARGH !!! Has anyone else had this happen, and if so , how did you attach the replacement to the floor?

[Dave K]

Christopher,

The radius arm cup assemblies are riveted to the floor when they build the cars but after you put the rear box section you can't get in to rivet them again.
Your only option is the rivet what you can get to and weld the rest.

Dave

[ChrisC]

I agree with Dave.

You can rivet the front of the plate and most of the sides but cant get to the ones at the back. So your only option is to weld the back or cut a hole in the panel facing the rear axle (and I doubt you want to do that...).

I would also be a bit worried about what else is rusty in that area and have a real good prod about as obviously welding a new cup to a bad floor panel is not good in the long run.

[christopher storey]

Right. Suspension is out and I have had a good look. The plate holding the cone is quite sound as apparently is the surrounding area. The "roof" of the plate above the corroded area is apparently unrusted, and thus I think/hope that it is not a structural problem. I shall talk to Hutson's tomorrow ( I hope this is not one of the weeks they have abandoned as a result of the bank holidays!) but I think the solution will be to use Magna lock or similar fasteners, which are the ones which go through the hole and then collapse as load is applied to them thus producing a clamping force through all three layers - cone , floor and stiffener, which are involved here . They are , it seems, a more modern version of the original Huck bolts/rivets and are very useful where blind holes are concerned, as here for the rear ones. Thanks to you both for the advice - I shall report progress

[Dave K]

We used to use Huck bolts to clamp very large conveyor chain link together, great fastener but the only only restriction was the gun and hydraulic power pack used to do it, very heavy and unwieldy plus you needed the room to get the nose of the gun in.

Dave