So, now that I’ve almost finished all the surgery on the chassis, I need to do a quick rebuild of the car to understand where all the cables, pipes, etc need to run.

Rather than drill holes in the chassis and use self tappers, I thought I’d make some weld-in brackets to hang the p-clips off instead.

For this test, I’ve used m5 socket-headed cap screws, secured in m5 nutserts. The holes themselves are cut to 6mm, and to use the nutserts I just ream them out to 7mm. I don’t fully trust nutserts, so I’m going to experiment a little to secure each one with a tiny weld tack. If I get concerned about vibration loosening the cap-screws I’ll go for locktite.

Of course, I could use m6 cap screws and nylock bolts, but sometimes getting back there to tighten a nut is a faff, and better if I can prepare all of this on the bench before welding in. The three tabs on the top are for welding to. My plan is to prevent the heat from the weld getting too close to the holes which would increase the risk of warping or mis-shaping the holes.

Each bracket is 2mm mild steel, and weighs 19g naked and 64g fully configured with the three p-clips in the pictures.

As ever when getting things laser-cut, the cost of a larger run isn’t that much more than a minimal run, so I had 60 made. The cost ended up being 70p each in runs of 60. I’ll be welding them here, there and everywhere to make good use of their options to hang stuff off. I think my new fuel tank for instance may hang nicely off them.

and finally, the back end view: