If you are trying for pure factory look, you can use a hammer and dolly to straighten out the mangled hole, then carefully braze or solder the original nut back in.
If you just want the bolt to thread into the nut in the body so you can install the fenders without two people, you can do what I have often done - weld a nut to a washer, then weld or braze the washer over the original hole from the outside with the nut on the inside. A few taps with a hammer will seat it below the surface. It doesn't look factory on the inside, but it's solid. Anti-sieze on all threads when assembling, of course! Chuck Kuecker On 7/24/2011 3:33 PM, Bert Knupp wrote: > Hi, Y'All, > > I'm encountering a new problem -- that obviously must be an old problem -- > in removing the fenders etc. from the 1972 SuperBeetle I've acquired. Some > of the squarish captive nuts in the body are torquing loose and spinning > when I try to remove the fender bolts -- no matter how much PB Blaster I've > soaked the bolts with the day before. I 've tried three different > Vise-Grips on them but nothing will hold them -- they're soft steel that > chews up easily. > > A couple of them -- e.g. LF fender -- are concealed under brake-fluid > reservoirs and other hardware so there's no way to get easy access to their > backsides. > > If I end up torquing off a captive nut, is there an easy repair nut to > replace it? > > Anybody know any good tricks before I end up butchering my sheet metal? My > fenders and the body are in good shape and I plan to re-use them after > stripping and repainting them. (I don't weld.) > > Thanks, > > Bert Knupp > > '67 Rustwagen > '70 Copbug > '72 Super Beetle _______________________________________________ vintagvw site list [email protected] http://lists.sjsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vintagvw
