gday all.
went to put one of my race seats back into the mini just to take some photos of
my little boy in the mini and just noticed that one of the bolts that securers the seat brackets onto the car has snapped off ...and there is now a hole there...as i kinda pushed it in ....just woundering what others have done when this happens...
last time it hapended in my previous mini i just drilled all the way threw to the other side
and replacd the little bolt with a long one and put a nut on the end??
used high tenson bolts of course also...

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started a new project...there goes all my free time....

do you mean the captive nuts at the front vertical edge of the crossmember?

can you post a picture?

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

I'm facing this problem aswell and it looks like the PO faces it too .
The car when I got it had both the drivers brackets welded to the crossmember, Opinions welcome
And on the passenger side one has snapped both captive nuts out of the crossmember so I simply put a decent plate on both sides of the crossmember and put two long bolts right through. The 2nd bracket is starting to snap the captive nut s out so I'll have to rectify that before I get the car back on the road .
Whats better put plates and bolts through or simply weld them on

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

I'd say the problem with putting bolts through is that the crossmember will crush - I think you'd want to put a tube through the crossmember, with plates at either end, and then welded to the crossmember. The bolts would go through the tube

I'm no engineer tho

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did I tell you that I won a trophy?

Simply borrow a 'nutsert' tool from an engineering shop or buy one from the US, on ebay.

It is a threaded rivet gun, to put a captive nut pretty much anywhere!

Since the original front mounts for the seat brackets were 'only' a captive nut (not even welded i think?) this should be sufficient.

That's how i put the brackets for the passenger seat in Animal, had to move it 1inch in toward the centre of the car to clear the rollcage.

No one would know!

Matt

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68 Deluxe.... it's shiny..... I like shiny!!

Drill them out and fit Rivnuts.
http://www.cardinalcomponents.com/fasteners.htm

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Curly
'64 Cooper 'S' (Group Nb spec)
'67 Mini Marcos GT www.mm7056.wordpress.com

What they said...or weld big washers and a nut on....

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"Show me the Mini!"

What I have done is pass a small socket extension through the hole in the rear, with a 7/16 nut in the socket. Line it up with the hole, and screw the small bolt into it. A bit of messing around, but with a bit of patience, I did it. Then you tighten the BMF out of it, so it wont come loose,
Cheers, Colin

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Crazy Minimad

I'd use the old racecar method of attaching things to tube (the x member is really just a flimsy square box section tube when installed).
I use 5/16" bolts because they are much stronger than the crappy little 1/4" factory ones.
It'll never break again.

1. Cut 4 pieces of 12mm dia steel bar, 3mm longer than the crossmember width. Tap a 5/16 UNF thread in one end, 20mm deep. You can tap it 8mm instead, if you have the tap and are not totally British...
2. Drill thru the crossmenber 12mm dia, from front to back, horizontally- from the existing tapped holes.
3. Clean all the paint from around the holes and deburr them, front and back.
4. Sit the 4 bars in there and braze them in with oxy, using manganese bronze rod. This flows into the joint and makes a nicer neater job than MIG welding does. But if you have a MIG and no Oxy, use that instead.
Don't burn the threads....!
Grind the tapped ends of the bars off flush with the crossmember
5. Drill the seat brackets out to 5/16" or 8mm.
6. Paint the crossmember. Bolt seat in. Enjoy.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.

Heres a pic of mine

I'm going to cut the drivers ones off (their welded on), put fatter bolts through and put in some better plates on the back of the crossmember for all 4 brackets.
IMO that should be strong enough and we'll see what the engineers say

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

The crossmember is likely to deform as you tighten the bolts. It aint as strong as you would think.

If you are doing that, you should put in some 'crush tubes'. I still say you should just use the rivnut / nutsert. Easier than anything else, and it must be safe cos that's how they left the factory!

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68 Deluxe.... it's shiny..... I like shiny!!

thanks heaps for the replys...i like the look of the Tubular fasteners with internal threads.
looks nice and easy and as the car is getting new metal put in anyway ill get the guy to tack weld them onto the car....

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started a new project...there goes all my free time....

A mate came up with a unique way of getting the fasteners in there when fitting Barina seats in his Mini. It could potentially be used for this type of problem.

- Positiion seats and drill holes in the correct postion on cross-member.
- Take the bolts to be used to secure front of seats to the cross-member and wind a nut down the thread of each.
- Grind/File the end of each bolt perfectly square to fit a 1/4" (I think it was??) open-ended spanner.
- Drill a tiny hole through the flat section you just created on the bolt for the 1/4" spanner and remove the nut from the bolt to clean up the threads.
- Poke some mig wire through the first seat bracket and the new hole in the cross-member and out the original hole in the back.
- Put a suitably sized washer on the first bolt, then phoke the mig wire through the hole in the flat section. Secure the mig wire to the bolt.
- Pull the bolt through into position using the mig wire.
- Silde a spring-washer and nut down the mig wire and finger tighten on the bolt.
- Using the aforementiioned 1/4" spanner on the flat part, tighten the nut on the bolt.
- Repeat for the other cross-member bolts.
- Viola! Job done.
If you ever want to remove the seats the mig-wire trick can be used again to avoid losing the bolt inside the cross-member. I imagine it would be difficult to manouvere the bolt all the way out the back again, but not impossible.

Cheers,

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Brett Nicholson
Greendale (near Ballan) VIC.
1971 Morris Mini Moke
1966 Austin Mini
1965 Morris Mini Traveller
1973 LR Series 3 88
2007 LR Freelander 2

Yeah those factory fitted super strong captive nuts which are ripping out now causing me these troubles, yeah they'll be fine
The crossmember may very well disform as the bolts are tightened so the crush pipes may be useful, but they didn't affect mine when I first fitted them and their still as tight now as when I first tightened them up

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Respect mine and I'll respect yours.

They are brilliant , I've looked for something like that many times but never found anything .

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