Saturday Morning
Member
I was admittedly a little heavy handed tightening down the screws holding the battery access cover (aka the Maintenance lid) in place. I felt the knurled nut insert begin to spin behind the cover and instantly knew I’d messed up. I tested my luck with a sharp reverse turn but it was too late. The nut spun behind the lid and the bolt would neither loosen nor tighten at that point.
The next move was to loosen up the center cover enough to grip the back of the knurled nut with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Once the bolt was out and the maintenance lid removed, I could test the knurled nut and it spun in the plastic with little resistance. Great. Whose great idea was it to use a thin piece of plastic to hold a nut anyways? - After some pondering I decided that the frunk interior (aka the luggage box) had to come out to examine the nuts and find a fix.
With the luggage box out and full access to the spun knurled nut I worked on a fix. Tying the two nuts together to prevent either one from spinning seemed like the best bet. Some stiff wire and a bit of solder worked beautifully. If I’d had some JB weld handy I might have tried that. Everything went back together easily and the wire is cleanly concealed behind the luggage box without any evidence of a repair. Posted here so that others can learn from my mistake and take it easy with the maintenance lid screws. If one of the nuts should spin there is cheap, clean repair, that works!
-Saturday
The next move was to loosen up the center cover enough to grip the back of the knurled nut with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Once the bolt was out and the maintenance lid removed, I could test the knurled nut and it spun in the plastic with little resistance. Great. Whose great idea was it to use a thin piece of plastic to hold a nut anyways? - After some pondering I decided that the frunk interior (aka the luggage box) had to come out to examine the nuts and find a fix.
With the luggage box out and full access to the spun knurled nut I worked on a fix. Tying the two nuts together to prevent either one from spinning seemed like the best bet. Some stiff wire and a bit of solder worked beautifully. If I’d had some JB weld handy I might have tried that. Everything went back together easily and the wire is cleanly concealed behind the luggage box without any evidence of a repair. Posted here so that others can learn from my mistake and take it easy with the maintenance lid screws. If one of the nuts should spin there is cheap, clean repair, that works!
-Saturday
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