Oh dear... I have a hole

[Jeffds1360]

Get a look at this! The PO must have had a death wish?

[Pete Lewis]

ouch     you know how to  pick them 

its not unkown but youve found it before you needed to use in anger ,  just another job thats smacks the smile off for a while 

so now youre wondering What Else ????

pete

[Jeffds1360]

Makes me wonder.... what else????

Still... not a massive problem

I cannot find anything else that concerns me. My, that fibreglass patch is stronger than metal! Pity it was not bonded to the arch properly! Actually I'm pleased I found it. Also newish rear outriggers Surely no more nasty surprises?

aaaarrrgh. Sunday afternoon!

[Badwolf]

Now we go back to the neccessity of mots on classic cars!

[Sparky_Spit]

I'm speechless.....  Why would someone do that?  If the person doing that is keeping and using the car then fair enough; they get what they deserve if it fails; but doing that and then selling the car on?....

[Jeffds1360]

Worse than that.... he gave it to his daughter!!!

I'm being cruel  may be the previous to him did that, it seems to be many years old?

AND... it would have been Mot with that patch which was under-sealed and pretty solid

[poppyman]

That is terrible Jeff..... The place i use for mot's refuse to mot car's that are heavily undersealed unless it is cleaned off first. They are ok with the likes of Dynax ect, but anything rubberised they wont do. I would be scraping any further underseal off pronto...

Tony

[Jeffds1360]

⁰There is no further undersea visible but a 3" washer under the n/s belt so I cleared access and took this. Bloody hell man! You can see daylight!

[poppyman]

That is a shocking bodge   I can just about understand doing it in non structural area's, but that is playing with lives. Have a good prod about in other structural area's Jeff with a pointed hammer if you have one? Just to be sure. Fibreglass sounds different to metal.

Tony.

[Colin Lindsay]

The large washer - in fact a very thick washer / plate - in the wheelarch is the mounting point for the GT6 seatbelt, but not the Heralds I have (unless very late models had it?)

However the metal it's screwed to is usually present...

[Jeffds1360]

My other 4 seatbelt points are sound. Do you know if the nuts are captive?

Where else is classed as structural?

[Pete Lewis]

the factory fits are captive  if any is retro then it may have a un  attached plate reinforced  and weld nut  

club shop sell them

 

[NonMember]

2 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

The large washer - in fact a very thick washer / plate - in the wheelarch is the mounting point for the GT6 seatbelt, but not the Heralds I have (unless very late models had it?)

Do you have a convertible? They're the only ones with the seatbelts attached to the wheel arch.

[Jeffds1360]

Well I certainly do, the o/s washer must be buried in the fiber -glass.

I'll have a closer look tomorrow and work out how much welding I need.  Fun days are postponed 

[Colin Lindsay]

1 hour ago, NonMember said:

Do you have a convertible? They're the only ones with the seatbelts attached to the wheel arch.

In mine they were connected to the top of the B post; at least the early 1200s are. That's why I mentioned that late cars may be different - maybe 1360s?

[NonMember]

5 minutes ago, Colin Lindsay said:

In mine they were connected to the top of the B post

The WSM says waist rail about six inches back from the B-post on saloon and estate, rear wheel arch on convertible. There's no mention of any changes over production or differences between models. All the unmolested Heralds and Vitesses I've seen have followed that. That WSM doesn't cover 948s, though, so it's possible they were different. Or, of course, a very early car may have left the factory without harnesses and the dealer may have done their own thing.

[Jeffds1360]

I'm thinking the convertible design is poor, causing a built in water trap with that large 'washer' holding water between it and the wheel arch and thus the rusting, now showing on the near side, around the edge of it. The off side must have gone earlier, resulting in the fibre glass repair. Beware you cv owners!

I could nearly write a book after only a few weeks of ownership

[NonMember]

That sort of reinforcement plate was standard practice at the time. The same arrangement exists on Spitfire and GT6, as well as their lower seatbelt anchorages, and seat fixings. The rear subframe fixings on the big saloons and Stags have the same double skin thing (although the thick plate is a fair bit larger on them). Bumper iron mountings, Herald boot mounting points, pedal boxes... they're all reinforced with a plate spot welded against the body panel. They generally didn't rust out any faster than the surrounding metal.

If you look at the state of such a part when it's 50 years old and criticise the design on that basis... it's a bit like looking at a 300 year old corpse and saying the body is pretty poorly designed.

[Colin Lindsay]

12 hours ago, NonMember said:

The WSM says waist rail about six inches back from the B-post on saloon and estate, rear wheel arch on convertible. 

Must be a late WSM then, Rob. I had to check to be sure, never having had a 13/60 convertible, but it seems that all 1200s and earlier have the seat belt on the b-post; if you look at the trims available you'll see that 1200 rear trims are solid but 13/60 rear trims have a slot for the seat belt which presumably goes right back to the wheelarch. Estates and saloons are as you say on the top rail just behind the b-post.

  

[NonMember]

Interesting... the WSM I looked at first is one of the reprints, so it includes all the updates. I've just checked a ring-bound original copy, which clearly isn't as fully updated (doesn't cover the 13/60) and... it doesn't even have a section about seat belts!

The ones in your photos look rather like after-thoughts. I wonder whether the early cars were built without them, and that fitting was the "we need to do something" fix, while the wheel arch attachment was the "proper" production update.