Like many Brit car roadsters, Cobras had Left-the-Dot snaps for the soft
top and tonneau cover. On Cobras the Lift-the-Dot studs were screwed
into threaded aluminum inserts embedded in the body around the cockpit.
Since Cobras have aluminum bodies this didn't worked too well. The
threaded inserts tended to loosen up in short order making it very
difficult (sometimes impossible) to remove or install studs. Even
worse, the stress on these studs often bent the aluminum body work
around them. The last time I had the gas tank out I decided to correct
this problem while I had access to the underside of the area where most
of the inserts were. By then, most of them had come loose and fallen
out anyway.
What I did was put largish washers and nylocks nuts on the bottom side
of each stud. This seemed to worked pretty well. None of the studs
ever came loose and, so far, no body damage has resulted. But this did
cause a couple of other problems. First, I couldn't replace any of the
studs when they got banged up or rusty because, with the tank installed,
there wasn't enough room to fit a wrench on the nylocks nuts. Second,
the washers I used where made of plain steel and have rusted badly since
they were installed.
So here's my plan now that I again have access to this area: I'm going
to replace the rusted plain steel washers with stainless and replace the
existing plated nylocks nuts with stainless nylocks nuts. What I would
like to do is solder the nuts to the washers and then to epoxy the
nut/washer combinations to the underside of the body aluminum.
I've never tried to solder stainless before so I don't know how easy it
is to do or if special solder is required. It would be nice to braze
them together but I don't think the nylon could take the heat. The
other question is how well will the epoxy hold since it will be
subjected to road vibrations and some stress. How well will it
withstand the torque of screwing studs in and out of the nylocks nuts.
Even if the new studs remain new looking, I'll want to be able to remove
them without pulling the gas tank when I get around to painting the car.
Roland Dudley
cobra@hpcdcsn.cdc.hp.com
CSX2282
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