• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

Fastners for trunk mounted luggage rack?

Share this page

N

Norton47

Jedi Warrior
Offline
The luggage rack mounted on the trunk was fastened with oval headed phillips screws that went into what appear to be swaged in place threaded inserts. The forward two are visible but the rear two are not due to trunk deck having an outer skin and and inner skin forming the rear deck lid edge.

One of them now turns and I had to drill out the screw to remove the rack.

Are these type swageable threaded inserts available anywhere?
If these type threaded inserts are not available, what is used to mount the luggage rack to the trunk (boot) deck?
The rack is the same in appearance as one in the Moss catalog.
Thanks
 
I think I used the same type of inserts on my 74 Spitfire many years ago to mount the luggage rack as well as door mirrors. McMaster Carr is a good possibility for replacement inserts, look at their threaded inserts as well as nut inserts for starters. I used something that looked like their nut inserts - the only pain with these is that there was a special tool used to install the inserts.

Randy
 
I found some of these in the McMasters Carr web site under rivet nut. The install tool was $25 for the hand wrench version and I used a material thickness of .045.
I also found shims I needed for the 1946 Norton so made a nice order. Will post how they work.
 
An aside to luggage rack installs on a TR6. If one opts for the stainless steel aftermarket rack sold by the big vendors, beware that the foot pads on these babies often doesn't fit perfectly the contours of your boot surface. After laying it out and perfectly drilling the four holes (man, that hurt my heart), I used stainless bolts to affix the heavy monster, and promptly torqued the sheet metal. Bummer. I ended up doing a bit of grind-contouring of the bottom of the pads, but not enough metal there to do it right. I am sure these things are jig welded, but they just don't fit. I ended up dipping the pads in black tool dip (whatever that stuff is called), letting it age a few days, then cutting a 1/8" rubber pad to fit under that, then rebolting. Looks ok.

I regret installing that big, heavy rack. Luggage racks, now IMHO, are as useful as teats on a boar-hog. It does come in handy to be used as a grip-handle to open my trunk.
Any more weight added to my boot lid, in addition to the weight of that stainless steel rack, is too much for my trunk (oops, boot) lid to handle.
 
Norton47 said:
Are these type swageable threaded inserts available anywhere?
Click to expand...

MMC is a good suggestion. Harbor Freight also has a complete kit for cheap, with an assortment of nuts & an installation tool, for under $20
https://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=1210

BTW, next time, you might want to try just putting a drop or two of penetrating Loctite around where the nut comes out of the bottom. Use anti-seize on the screws, too.
 
Rivnuts are great. Used to use them on the Formula car to hold on the side pods. Just like a pop rivet with threads.
 
The original racks as fitted at the port of entry in New Orleans used the oval headed screws you describe, but they were pre-coated with a plastic cover over the threaded portion. Holes were simply drilled into the trunk (yeah, I know, but it was American guys who did the installations, and they kept their boots on their feet) and used an electric drill to drive in the screws.
 
My 74 has two stainless screws with nuts on the underside nearer the top, and two stainless self-tapping on rear. There is some remains of a plastic sleeve that should be between the screw and the rack. I use the rack often.

Jer
 
I got some rivnuts from McMaster Carr along with the hand install tool. I used the zinc plated steel and have gotten stainless steel oval headed 10-32 screws.
There was a plastic padding under each foot of the rack.
The rack itself seems light, it weights in at 6.8 pounds.
The rivnut installed simply. Worked great.
I too find it useful, I can carry motorcycle wheels to get them balance or new tires put on by strapping them to the rack.
Looks kinda cool in a spare tire ish way!
 
Back
Top