Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

Well with my failure of removing the alternator from the car yesterday I thought I would replace the rear panels of the car seeing as I'd removed and replaced the drivers door card yesterday with no problems.

So I started out removing the seats and also removed the screws that hold down the kick strip on the front door. I pulled the rear panel and then realised I would need to release the lower seat belt fixing point so I cracked open the Torx sockets and found that the T50 Torx head was the right one. I found the bolt a little stiff so I loosened it as far as I dared and then tightened it a little and then tried undoing the bolt again and so it carried out try to ease a little more each time.

Then disaster the bolt stopped and before I'd realized it the Torx part where the socket was seated then shredded. Now I know this is now going to be a right pain to remove as the lad I got the interior off had the same problem and had to grind the head of and will have to drill out the rest of the bolt. I'm not looking forward to having to do that and one thing I'm going to do is replace the stupid round headed Torx bolts with proper bolts that don't shear off at the first sign of some hard work. But still I'm left not able to go any further without digging out the grinder. So I'm not having a very good week.

First the Alternator and now the rounded off Torx bolt.

It's a good job the cat and the kids were out the house as I could have kicked them when I got back in.

Do you need to grind it before drilling? I would have thought you just drill the whole thing out? Starting with a larger drill bit until you've removed the 'head' part, then a smaller drill to clear the threaded part?

I'm going to be swapping my seats soon, may even do them this afternoon so hope mine are all okay!

214cab wrote:Do you need to grind it before drilling? I would have thought you just drill the whole thing out? Starting with a larger drill bit until you've removed the 'head' part, then a smaller drill to clear the threaded part?

I'm going to be swapping my seats soon, may even do them this afternoon so hope mine are all okay!

Swapping over the seats was easy it's the bottom seat belt bolt that holds it to the car that is causing the problem when I was trying to swap over the rear panel to match the seats.

If it's loosened slightly you may be able to get a good pair of mole grips on to get the bolt out without to resorting to the grinder, it's slow work and kills your hands popping the grips on and off but it tends to work if you have enough head out to grip.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll get some mole grips tomorrow and give it a go and let you know how I got on.

Ok not a bad day today some success and some failure.

I managed to get the seat belt bracket off via removing the head off the bolt. I also had to do the otherwise as well as it tested me as just as I thought I had it the socket slipped and caused it to round off that much that I could do anything but grind the head off.

I've fitted the rear door cards and just left the rear seat belt bottom bolts unattached on both sides as one has a bolt lodged on it and on the other side a hole where the bolt decided it had enough and came free.

I know I'll have to have them sorted before the next mot but I'm not planning on having any rear passengers in the car so I'm nit fussed for the time being.