Bonnet Hinge mount broken !

[snorky]

the nearside bonnet hinge on the Chim is broken. When I bought the car it had a small ding on the bonnet leading edge -no probs I thought just needs filling and painting when I have the whole front done for stonechips. But I noticed yesterday that where the bolt is matted into the bonnet it is all loose and wiggly. I tried last night to rescue it with araldite but it isn't strong enough of a repair and , though it's better than it was, it's still loose and will go back to how it was soon I think. Is this a "change the hinge mounting black plastic thingy" job ? or is it cheaper to get a 2nd hand bonnet and have it painted or is there a better repair technique I could use ?? ? ? ? ?

[snorky]

OK I'll reply to my own thread.....found that dealers will bond a new hinge unit ( the black thingy in the middle with the bolts sticking out of it ) into the bonnet with no need for painting. Unit costs £15 + VAT and needs 2-3 hours labour. So if all goes well, sorted for under £100...

[JonRB]

Glad you got it sorted. I was going to post something along the lines of "can't they just fibreglass it back in?" but thought I'd wait until someone knowledgable came along to post.

[david010167]

I am gad you got it sorted as well, as you have not had the car that long and it would be a shame for things like this to taint your joy of her.

David

[jut]

Having repaired this section too many times myself I've come to the conclusion that the whole design isn't strong anough for the job , even with a good repair (or from new) frequent visits to speeds over 1#0 mph tend to make the force/vibration try to rip the bonnet off, damaging the glassed in thread in the process.

There must be a better way (apart from visually instrusive bonnet pins) of doing this ,it does worry me to see the front of the bonnet flapping around like this ,if one of the hinges lets go at speed it would be' goodbye bonnet''goodbye windscreen' and more likely goodbye me ! I'm thinking perhaps of a piece of threaded rod that passes right through the whole asssembly. Any thoughts ?

[snorky]

my original thought was to drill out the other side and push thru a stainless threaded rod with ally plates either side - epoxy'd on to locate the holes and to bolt up to....you're right it's a sh1te design solution for such a large bonnet. David - if it caught fire I'd still love it to death - thanks for the concern tho if I have it repaired and it goes again I'll seriously look at putting a rod in it....