Nuts...removal

[MacD]

What is he best way to remove coating of underseal in order to loosen nuts and remove rear wings.?
Any advise greatly received.
Thanks

[philthehill]

Except for the two bolts/nuts at the bottom rear of the rear wing the means of securing the wing to the body is by 5/16" BSF bolts into caged nuts..
To remove the underseal from around the bolts - soak the underseal in white spirits or similar - when soft use an old chisel with care to remove the old underseal..
Soak the caged nuts with release oil not WD40. Many of the caged nuts can be seen inside the boot.
Removing the rear side trim will give access to the rest.
Take care undoing the bolts as excessive loading can turn the nut in the cage.
If you have a 5/16" BSF second/third tap give the threads in the captive nuts a run through with the tap.
When reassembling smear the bolt threads in 'Copperease'. That will ensure that they are easily removable if they need to be removed in the future.
Do the same with the nuts/bolts.

[MacD]

Great,thanks for all that.
MacD

[ManyMinors]

When I fitted new wings to my own Minor saloon, I found that the easiest way to gain access to the fixing bolts was to cut the wing off first - so that just the fixing flange remained. I removed the rear bumper and the lights, and then cut around the edge of the wing just below the piping - an easy job as the rust had already thinned out the metal quite well! With the wing out of the way, access to the bolt heads was much better. It is worth getting some penetrating oil or something around the cage nuts first otherwise you'll probably find that the nuts simply turn in the cages

[MacD]

Good idea about cutting
Thanks.

[firedrake1942]

Well worth taking care that the captive nuts do not turn in their cages. I once spent a week of my school lunch hours three cars up on a wobbly scrapyard pile trying to chisel my way through the cages to remove a decent rear wing.... Air was blue and not a lot of skin left on knuckles. As for my school uniform........ Still the wing lasted about 7 years and was only £5.00 (this was 1978!)