Suspension tower holes in wrong place

[Donels]

I am trial fitting the body on my +2 before painting. A new chassis was fitted in 1983, clearly by a bunch of animals. No shims had been fitted causing body damage which I have now sorted. I have shimmed the body so it now fits nicely but the holes in the front and rear suspension turrets are now about half a hole out.

I see three possible solutions. 1 move and reglass the bobbins, 2 weld and redrill the holes, 3 open out the bobbins.
Someone else must have come across this. What's the best solution. Clearly opening out the bobbins is the easiest!

Dave

[SimonH]

If you are going to open out the bobbins a reasonable thing might be to drill the hole you have in them to a size of ally round bar you can get. Locktite that in the hole. Then redrill where you need to. It will obviously cut through the side of the bar but once bolted down it won’t go anywhere and will not allow any sideways movement of the bolt in the hole.

[baileyman]

It may be an alignment challenge to drill through a filled-in bobbin to match an upright bolt hole behind it!

John

[nigelrbfurness]

The usual solution is to cut out the bobbins, bolt them in place then re-glass them. I've never seen an alternative solution that worked in this situation.

[RichardHawkins]

Dave,

I had a similar problem with bobbin alignment. I tried the Loctite and re-drill solution, but the bond was inadequate. After discussion with Loctite technical helpline a grade of epoxy was suggested. I drilled and tapped the bobbins oversize and made and fitted screwed aluminium plugs bonded in place with the suggested Loctite EA 9466 epoxy. When the epoxy had cured, I re-drilled and tapped the plugged bobbins to align with the chassis.

Where the body mounts to the chassis at the top of the rear struts the bobbins misaligned so badly that there was not enough room to plug and re-drill. A friend cut the body and re-glassed the bobbins in the correct place. I don’t do fibre glass repairs, I get in an awful sticky mess, I get in a sticky mess with most adhesives and the glass just make it worse.

Hope this helps,

Richard Hawkins

[Donels]

Thanks for the feedback chaps, all good points. I'm inclined to cut and reglass the bobbins.

Dave

[vstibbard]

+1 for cutting bobbins out and reglassing, the only other option, if the body is off is to weld up the existing holes then redrill and tap.

I've done both

V