Awesome

Jacked the car up, and also lifted the exhaust out the way.

Drilled a tiny hole in the centre of the bolt. Screwed in an easy out (like a screw with an anti-clockwise thread with a handle) and out came the sheared bolt. It obvioulsly pays to grease them up well. I've also been around and tightened up the other bolts, one in particular was a bit loose.

Just rang 2cv city and they tell me that the thread for a shock absorber bolt on their chassis is an M12 x 75.... so off to find one now.

It can't be this simple.... surely something is about to go drastically wrong!

Do they mean it's an M12 x 0.75 thread, length unspecified? Or that it's M12 (thread pitch unspecified) 75mm long?

This is a very good point I thought it was all a bit to simple.

On the plus side, Screwfix sell them in bags of 50 for £5

That seems awfully reasonable.

For what strength? Is there a strength marking on the old one?

I don't think it's M12x0.75, bear in mind the thread on the tie rods is M11x1, I'm almost certain the shocker mounting isn't likely to be a finer thread than that.

I'd imagine the fuckwit you spoke to is refering to it simply as an M12 bolt, 75mm long. If it's the case I can grab one which is M12x1.5 and post it to you tomorrow, in fact, I can grab you about a million of them if needs be.

8/8 or 10/9?

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Dimentions for IsoMetric threads here

surprised to see a M12x1
would be more surprised if the chassis maker used them, 75mm long M12x1.75
take the broken stub with you and match the threads before purchase( or measure how many threads are in a cm of bolt and divide by 10, there is the normal- and most likley coarse thread at 1.75 and a "fine" at 1.5

Id be tempted to get 4 10.9s and replace the lot

Sean

M12x1.75, it is (the ultimate cheap standard M12 bolt) but just ask Tony for a free one in the post, he's a businessman after all and a free bolt in the post won't hurt his pocket, I know we've had a free one from him for Andy Morris's chassis - it broke in his too.

Given the cost of a handful of 10.9s...

"Id be tempted to get 4 10.9s and replace the lot"

I wouldn't and didn't. The chances of it happening again now that Sam's aware it can happen are almost nil. I just popped over to Silly CVs and was given another bolt. Actually the car behaved pretty well with one of the damper bolts missing.