Too Young for a Rocking Chair.

Only a couple days until my first track day of the year, but on Monday, I got a little scare. I had taken car to the alignment shop on Monday, since we'd had the A-arms out 3 times in the engine repair process. As I was driving home from, I accelerated (relatively) hard, and all of the sudden I was in a rocking chair. It was as if the seat was not connected at all at the front, and the back was a hinge. It even managed to swivel side to side. It made for some pretty interesting driving as I essentially had to support myself by holding myself up on the steering wheel.

I wasn't too worried, as loose bolts were pretty common given the MASSIVE level of vibration that ensues when someone installs your balance shafts backwards! My concern increased when I pulled the seat out. It turns out that the front right bolt had backed out, but the front left bolt looked like one of those exploding bolts that they used to blow the hatch on the mercury capsules!



The nut that was in the hole is the next picture. It appears to have been tack welded in a couple places to some filaments of sheet metal that were left in the hole. I cannot imagine how this held as well as it did.



Fortunately, I am still in possession of Mr. Stecher's Mig welder, so it was time to but that few hours experience of playing with it in my basement (and nearly burning down my house) to use. I cut a patch of very strong sheet steel, and ground away the paint around the patch on the floorpan. I drilled an over-sized hole in the patch and welded the nut to it. I made a template of the rail with a piece of plexiglass, to hold the patch in place. You can see the plexiglass template in the third picture. The screw in the top right is one that I put in to hold the clamp for the ground on the welder.



I tacked it in, took the plexiglass out, and finished the weld. This picture looks rough, but I ground down all of the roughness and its a nice shiny even patch now. After Spring Fling I'll take the seat out and paint it to prevent rust, but for now, its a very strong patch... and I'm still pretty excited about having some success with a welder!