Well fifthed to that, but Sam c'mon. Off with the beer goggles already. It was all going so well, but those led's have got to go. OK on a boot box maybe, but the 3 fiddy??

Thank you! And I'll feel safe knowing how bright they are.

All objections duly noted chaps but the LEDs are staying for now. They use the same holes as the standard rear light so it would be easy to refit the old one if I, or a future owner, wanted to.

The main problem today was finding that the rear right hand shock absorber mounting stud has sheared inside the chassis mount. It's been like that for a while as the sheared part of the stud that came out is pretty rusty.

Annoyingly the stub of the stud is stuck in it's mounting. I tried drilling it and EZ outing it but it won't budge.

The other weird thing is the stud itself. It takes a 12mm castlated nut instead of the normal (is it 16mm?) nut.

Something else to sort out! It's funny, the shock was quite happy being not bolted in, I only noticed because I undid the rear bolt to make serving the knife edges easier, and the whole thing came off!!!

I'm sort of relieved that genuine citroen chassis' do this too - it's not just aftermarket ones!

sam,
the original studs usually only break if they've not been tightened correctly.
So far, I've only known of 2 which have broken and both of those were on the rear of vans...

Did you manage to drill it with an ordinary bit, as I'd have thought you'd need a cobalt bit to make any impression?

The thread size in the chassis should be M14 x 1.5, with the outer thread being either M12 x 1.5 or M14 x 1.5, nut size (across the flats) should be 19 or 21.

ken.

They haven't been touched in the time we had the van...

I'd have probably (and am tempted) to continue with it as was.

With earplugs, to suppress that rattling noise from the back end?

Well if it's been like that for x years whilst Adrian had her...

No, I'll drill it out. Somehow. The tungsten drill was superb, really ate it! To I just keep using bigger bits?

sorry Sam i prefer the original round ones too, couldn't you use a brighter bulb but use the original case?

Broke!

sam,
something very odd there...
Almost looks as though that stud was the wrong way round, as the thread should start about 15mm away from the hexagonal part.

ken