A very tricky repair

[PaulColeman]

When I first read your post, I thought about going in from the top but there are two thicknesses of material to cut through before you could get the captive plate out.Chris

If the spot welds are clearly visible (which I doubt, given the thickness) I was thinking I could drill through from the top to release the captive gage from below and then plug weld it back up again. Trying to get in from inside the rear wing could be rather awkward? There doesn't seem to be a lot of room in there...

Paul.

[steve3.8]

Paul ,
I would avoid drilling the outer panel , it would far safer to cut a window in the inner panel then weld it back up after you have gained access . An easier fix would be to leave it as it is and make another captive plate with the same tapped centres , place it below and use slightly longer screws , no fiddly nuts or spanners required .

Regards steve

[paulsco]

Paul,

If that is your car in the picture then the area at the top of the wing is not in paint.

That area on my car has some lead loading on it but this would be easily removed with a hot air gun and an old scraper.
It looks to me that there is a plate which the cage is welded to and about three or four spot welds holding this on to the wing.
If it were me, I would drill out these spot welds from above; remove the plate; drill out the spot welds on the cage; weld up the bolt holes and re-drill and tap them. Plug weld it all back together; job done(Except for re-leading).

Paul

[jag68]

Paul I'm also in the process of restoring a coupe (1967) so I went out and had a look at my tub - which appears to be in the same stage as yours. I measured the bolt holes - they appear to be 10-32 - that is a 10-32 tap fits well and when I tried a 10-32 screw in it it seemed okay - maybe a little loose which is why I say "appears". Anyway as I removed the tap from the captive plate the captive plate just fell out of the bracket down into the "well" below it. On inspection of the bracket that holds the captive plate in place it appears that the outer front corner of the bracket is not welded to anything. If you look up inside you can see that the front flange of the bracket is bent over to clear the inside of the shut pillar and is not welded to anything. The outside corner of the bracket had bent away enough to release the captive nut plate. You might try this on yours.In passing I note that there is a flange from the shut pillar that is welded to the (I don't know what to call it) flat flange that is the horizontal face of the top of the rear quarter panel under the quarter lights, so cutting this out is probably not a good idea - not to mention there is a lot of lead in this area. Anyway if you push down on the front outside of the captive plate you maybe able to bend the bracket and get the plate out. I have a couple of other ideas if this doesn't work.

[PaulColeman]

Thanks for the replies and the info :)

I'm planning on building a rotisserie over the holidays to hopefully get the tub upside down which will give me a better look into that area...

Cheers, Paul.