- Bolts in chassis
Those who have read this thread from the start will have seen that I have just acquired a GPW chassis that had been "restored" decades ago using large bolts in place of every single rivet. It is a mystery what went on with this chassis, but it has obviously lead a very hard life and a lot of work went into saving it.
I suspect with quite limited resources.
Thankfully the chassis was saved, I just want to try improve it.
Today I went and removed one of those bolts.
It was 3/4" AF, 1/2" UNC. x 1" long. As are all the others.
The area in front of the front cross member where you can see the threads and nuts for the spring hanger etc is very noticeable.
The scenarios I have come up with so far:
1) Sit there with an Oxy/Acetylene set with a copper backing plate and fill in the holes, redrill and install the Brent Mullins fake rivets.
Long and tedious.
2) Replace the bolts with Allen key dome head bolts, then put filler in the Allen socket, of course these would be still 1/2" shank and the dome would
be oversized. With the bolt just long enough that the nut sits flush.
Quick and simple.
3) Replace with 3/8" Allen key dome head bolts, making little collars on the lathe so that I can use the 3/8" dome heads and they will look better than
oversized ones - flush nuts too.
I know that using scenario (3) won't give a great deal of head diameter to hole diameter difference, but looking at a GPW chassis, any movement would tend to be in shear rather than in tension, so I discount any tendency to pull the head through the hole. I would buy high tensiles.
What I do about the spring mounting plates/hanger is far more critical and I think scenario (2) at the worst and scenario (1) at best.
Thoughts?