[TR] TR3 Transmission Tunnel

[Randall]

> Is there a workaround for bad capture nuts without having to 
> resort to welding, which would be a tight PIA with the engine 
> in the car?

There is a write-up on Mark Macy's site about how to use pop-rivets and the replacement captive nuts like these
http://www.mcmaster.com/?m=true#90955a113/=wky98k

I used that approach for one of the fuel tank hold down bolts, and it worked very well.

Another approach if you have a buddy at a body shop, would be one of the spot welders that uses two hand-held electrodes.  Or it
might be possible to convert a more conventional spot welder to use (short) flexible cables and hand-held electrodes.  I've used a
conventional spot welder on the replacement nuts as above and it worked slick, but didn't think to try the flexible cable approach.
Likely you could even do this with a conventional arc welder, fitted with a foot pedal control and a heavy copper rod for the
contact.

Yet another approach would be to install heli-coils into the captive nuts.

Lastly, for the nuts through the floor, you can use extra-long bolts and put conventional nuts on underneath, in addition to the
captive nuts.  Seriously hokey, but quick and (relatively) easy.  I'd forgotten all about it until I was stripping the wreck <G>

-- Randall