Engine Surround

[sandwer]

I tried to take the engine surround off over the weekend - but the rawlnuts (is that what they are?) on both sides are turning without undoing. So - does anyone have any suggestions for how I go about getting this cowling off?

I'm favouring a dremel to cut the heads off the bolts but that treats the symptom, and leaves me with the disease when I come to refit. Would drilling a hole through the fibreglass so that I can put a rod or a screwdriver in there to stop the back star-nut from turning work? Or will that just give me broken fibreglass?

[Splashout]

If you crawl about underneath you can actually get a set of mole grips on the underside to hold it while you or someone else undoes them.

I have done a couple this way. The best soloution would be to remove the old ones and then replace with appropriate riv-nuts. However if its easyenough to hold with the mole-grips you could do them up the same way.

So unless anything is hugely different between your n/a and my turbo shouldnt be too hard.

[Simon350S]

Dremel out....

Replace all with new riv-nuts..

The spinning bolts may have already torn the fibreglass a little so be prepaired to fix a few of the holes.

Simon

[82s3]

I had the same problem when I had to remove the surround in order to replace a fuel tank.

I used a dremel to cut the heads off the old bolts and managed to prize the riv-nut things out with mole grips.

All were replaced with new items from SJ and smothered with copperslip to prevent the new ones rusting solid in the future.

[sandwer]

All of you were right, except me. Dremelling or indeed drilling stainless steel bolts is not that much fun. I ended up trying my angle grinder for a bit, but, well, you can imagine the carnage.

Glyn, 10 out of 10 for the molegrip on the back of the nut idea, that worked a treat. I did have to have an assistant to turn the top bolt - she has lovely legs so that made up for the rust and rubbish I got in my eyes. The drivers side is the worst, as you have a huge bit of the loom to get past, but the passenger side was a walk in the park.

New items from SJ arrived today as well.....

Richard 6, RivNuts 0. Thanks lads....