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Triumph TR3 - Hidden nut

I know, the hidden nut is probably me..

I have been working on the horns for a TR3 and, like a previous post, had been putting off dealing with one of the minor problems I had. One of the captive nuts for the horn mount had been removed (ripped out?) by a previous craftsman (?). If the car was stripped down, I might have been able to put a captive nut back in there, but with all the stuff in the way, I needed to get a nut under the mounting screw farthest back in the channel there. I could almost hold one in place, but not quite, and next time would be a challenge to get it off anyway.

So I came up with soldering a piece of piano wire to a square nut. Bent the wire to fit tight around it and soldered it on (would have been better to braze, I'm sure). I left plenty of wire to stick out the opening, and it went on pretty nice. I'm gonna grease the ends of the bolt to hopefully save the threads and let me or the next owner remove the bolt and nut.

The horns needed to come out of the car to paint and clean up in general. I made sure the rod to the diaphragm was free, filed the points, cleaned the connections, and still only got a little "bp" when power was applied. I turned the adjusting point up and down a few flats, no good. I took the horn and beat it on the driveway, side first. Success! Could be I just needed to hit 'em with a hammer and they woulda worked, eh?

Anyway, now they look nice and both are mounted solidly. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to test in the car, as the neighbors are probably already a bit pissed at the crazy guy honking out in the driveway this evening. Yay! Cool looking horns and turn signals that work as the makers intended! Not nearly as much time involved in this fix as the damn stator tube.

BTW, beautiful night for a top down drive, maybe I'll check to see if the distributor tweak I did while watching paint dry is enough.
Tom

Another way to hold a nut in a confined place like your horns (and also the top nut holding the starter to the flange at the rear of the bell housing) is to put the nut into an open ended wrench of the correct size for the nut and tape the nut into the open end with masking tape. Then holding the other end of this assembly in one hand you can turn the hex bolt head. When it's all tight, slide back the open end wrench and the tape will come with it or maybe it will fall out at that time.

Voila as we say up here in French Canada.

Don Elliott, 1958 TR3A
Don Elliott

Good tip, thanks Don. I did want to put something on there to (hopefully) hold the nut when it's removed next time. A big glob of grease is all I can do to protect the threads and prevent the nut from separating itself from my soldered on wire when reversed. And a glob of Shoe Goo on the sharp end of the wire (ouch). That top starter nut has been a patience tester for me many times.
Tom

Maybe I'll solder a wire on the starter nut next time.
Tom

This thread was discussed between 03/08/2005 and 07/08/2005

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