Question for the experts. I had new shock tower mounts (and shocks) put into my 03 MCS in October. I also had the Cravenspeed under tower indurators (essentially metal plates) put in under the shock tower. This shortened up the shock mount bolts, which are prepressed into the mount, to the point that I do not have enough thread available to add my M7 strut tower bar. I know M7 says it is OK not to have the nuts fully engaged, but not only don't I not trust that, I literally don't feel like there are enough threads engaged anyway. It's like less than half of the threads.

So my question is this:

Can I keep the car all together, remove the shock tower mount nuts and hammer out the prepressed bolts out of the mounts with a hand held sledge and then use strong, longer bolts to replace them? Will that work or is impossible to remove the prepressed bolts?

You're help is appreciated as always!

 

Take out the Craven plates. With the M7 strut bar, They're overkill and creating a problem you don't need, adding weight and a slight rise in the front end height.

 

+1 on just removing the Craven plates.
However, since you stated you had the struts/mounts installed maybe you do not want to remove the struts yourself or spend $ to have them removed again.
If you have more than half the threads engaged you should be good. Normal minimal design would be 65% of the bolt diameter. For example, if the bolt is M12 you would want about 7.8mm of threads engaged. If the bolt/nut has a 1.5 pitch that is about 5 threads. I would just use blue (medium) loctite on the nuts. You could also use thin nuts on the bolts if you do not like seeing the exposed stud threads. Check someplace like mcmaster.com for thin nuts.

 

Personally I would keep the Craven plates and skip the M7 strut bar. Under tower plates are far more effective than putting reinforcement on top, and strut bars are more bling than function.

 

Good point plus removing the top strut bar is easy.
I just don't like having the plate underneath increasing the ride height but it does a better job for adding strength to the strut tower.

 

yeah, my towers are/were mushroomed. I like the idea of the sandwich to kind of work them back in place.

I don't have the bar on and don't need it, but I own it and I'd like to use it.

 

Yes. See an early thread started by me, something about my STD experience... But not what you're thinking. Anyway, I broke several of my soft stock shock-tower bolts, and replaced them with much higher grade 12.9 M8x1.5 bolts. That did the trick.

However, I'm with others: don't reverse-dent your hood stacking things too high, and don't worry about having all these reinforcements. And I don't have much experience with many other vehicles, but a strut tower brace doesn't do much in the Mini.

 

Found your thread. Still don't know how you got the bolts out.

 

Hammer, maybe a punch. Don't remember really. Definitely brute force.

 

I saw that if I have the wheel well fender off, I can get to the bolts from the bottom very easily. So if I can just hammer them down from the top to get them out I will do that.

I am sure the M7 bar AND the plates are overkill, but I like killing flies with sledgehammers when possible!

 

I don't think I understand. I just hammered them out from the top, with the hood open. They came out the bottom. They're not loose, but they're not that that tight, either. I certainly didn't strip the car down.

 

Hammer out the factory studs - they are too short to safely secure under plates and/or strut tower plates. Replace them w. longer grade 10.9 hardware. It's a bit of a chore to hold them in place w. a socket & extension but I was able to do this by myself this weekend.

Installed steel under plates and M7 uppers clamping it all together. Using grade 10.9 flanged head bolts. I have 1-2 threads past the factory nuts so that means full tread engagement. I also used loctite on them, tq'd to 25lbs.

 

~3-4mm is hardly worthy the worry.