Spare Wheel Fixing

The hole in the rear panel for the spare wheel mounting bolt was a bit of a mess. The paint around it was destroyed, and the panel deflected when the bolt was tightened and the tyre was forced hard against the boot cover, trapping it. This meant that any access to the boot required the the wheel to be loosened and then tightened again...

In this 1998 version of the chassis the bolt goes into a nut welded on the cross brace. There is however a gap of a few millimetres between the cross brace and the skin which means the skin is pulled inwards when the bolt is tightened.

Large 10mm 'repair washers' were used to both fill the gap and create a 'scratch resistant' mounting area on the outside, and luckily covered most of the damaged paintwork. These washers were drilled and secured with a couple of M4 stainless caphead screws into holes tapped into the cross member.

As well as tidying things up nicely, the washers move the wheel back a little and the tyre now only rests against the boot cover rather than clamping it to the bodywork. Pulling back on the wheel frees the grip on the central cover flap just enough to allow it to be pulled out and pushed back in quite easily. The press studs aren't accessible but it's not a problem and the flap is held in place well enough by the tyre.