body panel fasteners alert for brammo atom 2's

[silver]

A company that sells the southco fasteners,  sells them in minimum quantities of 1000, they might be available in other quantities somewhere else, but TMI is now selling retro kits including newly sized fasteners that match what they use on the atom 3, along with the appropriately sized backing plates but they are currently back ordered on the backing plates.

sooooo gather up your extra fasteners while you can

I lost 2 or three in the front under the nose cone cuz they kept falling out....then I realized there's no good reason to have one there in the first place so I just haven't put on back since then.

just a head's up

[benyeats]

[quote="silver"]

I lost 2 or three in the front under the nose cone cuz they kept falling out....then I realized there's no good reason to have one there in the first place so I just haven't put on back since then.

[/quote]

As another heads up it is worth putting some padding / spacers to take up any slack under the nose it moves around a bit otherwise and can lead to small cracks in the nose cone, that was my finding others have not had a problem.

[wisp]

[quote="benyeats"]
As another heads up it is worth putting some padding / spacers to take up any slack under the nose it moves around a bit otherwise and can lead to small cracks in the nose cone, that was my finding others have not had a problem.
[/quote]

I don't have cracks in the nose of the bonnet but there are fine ones in the nose cone (black portion) itself. However I think this is more to do with the indicator stalks being mounted into this on the very early cars.

I did have a clip pop out of one of the top bonnet fastening points while driving once. My son almost managed to catch it. Luckily I had him as a passenger as he was able to stop the bonnet flapping at that point until we were able to stop and implement a temporary repair. I've since put rubber washers under all clips and have not lost another one since. Touch wood.

[silver]

The brammo ones have rubber washers. on every single one that protect the paint, also they provided the purchaser with a few spares and different thickness rubber washers so that you can adjust the tension it creates when you lock it down.


My nose cone(black part) and tea tray both have cracks from stress......someone hit my nose cone which caused that but the tea tray I think has them b/c it moves around quite a bit during driving.

[Radowick]

 I decided to do something about the front engine cover attach screws. There is 6 of them that have always had such big, sloppy, & ragged holes in the engine cover, that the tiny rubber faced sealing washers have very little to hold on to. If one of them breaks thru from all the vibration, it will be difficult to fix. Does TMI even have this part for us? I found at the hardware store, some black faucet valve seals. It is not rubber. It is something more durable to handle years of use at the sink. It is stiffer then rubber too, so it doesn't flex quite as much either. There are many sizes, but most had a 3/16 hole in them. Perfect for the cover screws. I got the ones which are 11/16 in diameter. I got rid of the old seal washers and put these in place along with a regular stainless steel flat washer under the screw head. It has a lot more size, allowing it to hold onto more of the fiberglass panel. I think this is going to work out well.

[silver]

the reason they oversized the holes is that the underlying rivnuts are not in the same plane as the body panel therefore if the hole was the correct size the bolt would not line up correctly with the nut, took me forever to figure this out.  for example the hole was drilled out of the body panel straight up and down but the frame with the riv nut is at 20 degrees so they made the holes bigger instead of at an angle so you can attache the pieces.

Long story short it does lead to a lot of tiny pieces of fiberglass chipping off, but that doesn't bother me.

what bothers me is they used that stupid allen head bolt on everything which is not convenient.  I have thus bought the entire stock of M5 phillips head bolts from my local home depot and was planning on replacing all allen head bolts with phillips head bolts, at least on the body panels that get removed often.  I got the idea from the TMI car in Rockwall, all the fasteners have been swapped out for fasteners that are easier to work with.

the one screw with the most damage is the one on the top of the snorkel, can't wait to use the phillips head screws and no longer fuss with the stupid allen wrenches.

[Heywood-Yablowme]

You can buy in line Allen drivers. They look just like a screwdriver,only they have an Allen (hex) tip. Very handy to have! The nice thing about the stock Allen screws is they are stainless. (at least on my cars)

[silver]

I do have allen bits to fit my screw driver but its still annoying

[Heywood-Yablowme]

You are too easily annoyed (Talk about the pot calling the kettle black... )

[Radowick]

[quote="silver"]
......... I have thus bought the entire stock of M5 phillips head bolts...........
[/quote]

Mine are #10-32 screws. Are you sure yours are metric.

[quote="MadMaxAtom and company"]
You can buy in line Allen drivers. They look just like a screwdriver,only they have an Allen (hex) tip. Very handy to have! The nice thing about the stock Allen screws is they are stainless. (at least on my cars)
[/quote]

Getting replacement screws for these stock Allen/socket head screws in stainless steel is no problem. It is a common item. Nothing special.

[quote="MadMaxAtom and company"]
You can buy in line Allen drivers. They look just like a screwdriver,only they have an Allen (hex) tip. Very handy to have! The nice thing about the stock Allen screws is they are stainless. (at least on my cars)
[/quote]

I use a "T" handle hex bit wrench for these screws.

[quote="silver"]
.......the one screw with the most damage is the one on the top of the snorkel...........
[/quote]

Same with my car. It is all torn up as delivered 3 years ago. I put one of those faucet seal washers there too.
 

[silver]

Maybe we should both check again lol. The metric fit for me