It pays to have a good nosey...

[Big 240]

So today I refitted my dash binnacle after fixing the odometer cog. Before I did I had a good nosey with a torch behind the dash. Glad I did as I spotted a missing bolt!

It looks like it attaches the clutch and brake frame/mechanism to the car body. So when pressing the clutch, the pressure was flexing the frame, and I was losing full movement on the clutch pedal as a result. Recently I've actually bled the system a few times because it didn't feel like it was working well, now I know why.

So I found a spare bolt to fit from my spares bin, bolted in good and tight.

Moral of this story is, always have a good check around whenever you get chance, though never know what you might find!

No bolt:


Bolted in:

[Moomoo]

Where serendipity when you’re looking for it?

Well done, that could have driven you crackers if not found!👍

[classicswede]

With the bolt missing the bracket is liable to fracture where it will flex (seen it a few times)

[Big 240]

Glad I spotted it then!

[Othen]

Well done Big 240; welcome to classic car ownership. This is just normal business for 40 year old cars - and it becomes even more prevalent with 60 year old motors.

Most times when you take your motor car apart to fix or clean something you will find a fastener missing or loose, a cable wrongly routed, a split tube or a bare electrical conductor: it is one of the things that makes older vehicle ownership so interesting. In general never throw bits of your vehicle away (when you find, fix or replace them), keep them all in a spares box for when something similar falls off.



PS. If you didn't find the missing bolt in the footwell then the previous owner probably threw it away after it fell out - my point exactly.

[Dippydog]

Well spotted! You could have chased that "fault" forever and a day[and spent quite a bit of money trying to cure it.Or lived with it as a quirk of the car.

[Bob Meadows]

I had a similar thing on the front control arm bracket:~

One of the three bolts had worked loose setting up a very annoying clunking noise at times.

After going over the obvious a socket on the above found the culprit- not sure why it happened but suspect that the thinned wax treatment worked itself down the threads? who knows.
Bob.

[Big 240]

Originally Posted by Bob Meadows

I had a similar thing on the front control arm bracket:~

One of the three bolts had worked loose setting up a very annoying clunking noise at times.

After going over the obvious a socket on the above found the culprit- not sure why it happened but suspect that the thinned wax treatment worked itself down the threads? who knows.
Bob.

Nice find Bob!