I have a new exhaust can on the way and have bought a new Mini rubber mount for it in preparation (old one is starting to split and I am not sure whether the bike can will be long enough to utilise it in the current position)

As usual (I assume) this mount is bolted to the bottom chassis rail. However, I am trying to avoid taking the body panels off just to attach a rubber mount.

Anyone have any idea how the bolts holding the mount on are likely to be secured to the chassis? I assume there is a nut on the inner edge of the bottom chassis rail between the steel bottom plate of the car (attached to the underside of the chassis rail) and the 'floor' of the car (attached to the top of the chassis rail).

It, therefore, looks to me that I will have to take the side panel, seat, floor and possibly the bottom of the car out (including associated rivets with Sikaflex) just to get at two nuts!

Obviously, being on the exhaust side, I may even have to take the exhaust off at the manifold to enable removal of the side panel.

If anyone has built a Stuart Taylor locost, does this sound right? or any suggestions on how to fix the bolts without having to get at the inner edge of the bottom chassis rail?

Just looked at the build detailed on the ST site -
http://www.stuart-taylor.co.uk/Blade_build/blade-1.htm
and it definately describes all of the body panels being attached before the exhaust mount. So, I must be missing something...

You have probably gathered I didn't build the car
I also do not really have the capabilities to lift the car high enough to drill out/replace rivets on the bottom.

I know this will vary a lot from car to car but any suggestions would be welcomed.

Can you take any digi pics of it? You cant have to remove the whole side panel surely! It won't even come off properly anyway unless your very lucky, you'd probably end up having to replace it cos they rarely go back on how they came off as they stretch and shape themselves slightly as they are basically stressed panels.
Not much good telling you how mine works as I had to do a homebrew with it as its an MK chassis. I just have an L shaped bracket that fixes to the ST silencer, and i welded on a flat piece of steel to the underside of the chassis rail and the bobbin sits vertically in this and bolts into the L shaped braket.

Chris

Just uploaded this pic:
http://forum.locostbuilders.co.uk/xmb/photos/cgi-bin/showpic.pl?exhaust_mount.jpg

to the archive.

It seems that the bottom chassis rail is above the floor/bottom of the car (which are one and the same) but there seems to be no nuts on the inside of the car as the interior side panel fits flush to the chassis.

This suggests that the bolts do not have nuts on the end at all(unless there is some sort of captive nut inside the chassis rail which, I would imagine, is not possible).
Could these bolts simply be held into the chassis some other way? They appear too big to be self-tappers which I wouldn't have thought likely anyway as they are bolts and the vibration would surely make self-tappers a bit risky?

D'you think they could be 'bonded' into the chassis somehow as I can't for the life of me work out where any nuts could be!

I would imagine they either bolt into a couple of captive nuts (easy enough to weld into the chassis), or they've used a couple of rivnuts in the chassis that they bolt into, so either way a 5 minute job.

Easiest way is just try undoing one of them and see how it goes, but Im sure thats how they will be fixed in.

Chris

[Edited on 7/5/03 by ChrisGamlin]

Apparently, they are 'big self-tapping bolts' called 'body-bolts'. Learn something new every day....