Seat Belt Mounting Point

[JamieT]

The re-carpeting of my 400 went without a hitch and so stupidly offered to assist my mate doing his. Whilst removing the seat belts one of the bolts snapped clean off - the outer seat belt mount that holds the end of the lap belt (not the inertia reel). We sprayed them all with WD the night before but this obviously didn't do enough.

What the hell do we do now? I assume the mounting point is welded to the outrigger? After some solid poking with a screwdriver and hammer, the outrigger itself seems very sound from underneath (nice coating of hammerite doing it's job).

Questions:

A - how do we get the bolt out? It's snapped off flush to the body. Drill it seems only option? Any advice?

B - What happens if the mounting bracket is totally shot? How is it repaired? Can the body be cut away to weld on a new bracket or is it a body off job? ()

I'm feeling rather guilty as it was me who snapped it off...

Any advice would be appreciated.

Edited by JamieT on Monday 20th August 22:34

[griffter]

This happened to mine when Tower View fitted a rollbar. They drilled and tapped it. Personally - it being so safety critical - I'd get an experienced professional to do it. You simply can't mess around.

[The Moosehunter]

had exactly the same happen to me

had to cut the inner fibreglass away, sort the bracket and re-fix the fibreglass

a real pain in the ass

I don't envy youy

hopefully you may get away with drilling it

Good luck

[JamieT]

Thanks for the replies. I'll let him know.

It was all going so well up until that point....

[Colin RedGriff]

You can get stud extractors that have a reverse tapered thread on them. You drill a hole as large as you can into the broken bolt, then screw in the extractor, and basically keep tightening. The reverse thread means that you are effectively trying to unscrew the broken bolt and the taper locks the extractor into the bolt.

Be careful though they are made from stenghtened steel and do not take kidly to sharp shocks like being hit with a hammer so can snap off and then you are left with a piece of high tensile steel in the middle of you bolt and you're really b*ggered!

I would try drilling might be worth getting one of those tiny hand held blow torchs and see if you can apply some heat to it to break the rust. Also try and get some penetrating oil instead of wd40 on it.

good luck

[JamieT]

Hey Moose, can you remember how much that set you back or did you DIY?

Colin, I thought WD40 was penetrating oil?

Edited by JamieT on Tuesday 21st August 16:15

[Colin RedGriff]

Hi

It's often used as penetrating oil but it's actually a silicon based lubricant and most of the time is great for freeing off rusty bolts etc. Penetrating oil is more oily and is better at finding it's way into threads and freeing up corroded joints. It's more mucky than WD40

Get it from halfords or other motor factors.

[v8sag]

Drill and tap will be fine (7/16 bolt)it's a welded internal treaded pipe not a bracket so heaps of meat and thread.
I'd tap clean up all the other's while their out,make's your life alot easier,note the bolts are different lengths and reseal the outside threads where they are exposed on the underside of the body.

[JamieT]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Had a look at it again tonight. Scraped away a little rust. Doesn't look too bad at all. The actual face of the mounting point seems fine. This is obviously also a mounting point for the body. Is there some kind of padding between the chassis and the body? It seems to be this that is flaking away and not the mounting point thankfully.

Edited by JamieT on Tuesday 21st August 23:36

[v8sag]

There's silicone sealing the chassis for water tightness which also keeps the spacer in place.