just tried to take the bonnet of my austrum off on the weekend, but had no success as the nuts are rusted onto the bolts and they just turn together as you cant reach half the bolt heads.. so what do you reckon? grind the nuts off?! about the only option but ill end up givin the fibreglass a bit of a cut here and there... im wondering how they first held onto the bolts when it was assembled!

the first few bolts are just under the dash and going through the fender area but they continue on towards the nose above the fuel tank and you cant reach them... hmmm..

I'd grab the grinder! You won't be able to use them again anyway. If you can't reach them with grinder try soaking the bolts with CRC.

Sounds like a tricky job. Good luck!

Just take your time be careful. As for holding onto your nuts:jesus try aralditing them to the other side of the bonnet when you bolt through from under the wing.

tube spanners may help hold them, Laurie
G'day !!!

if you can get a drill in there drill them out........ use stainless bolts with nylock nuts ( or stainless nuts with s/less split washers) when you put them back

hey thanks all for replying, and gday karmen hows the kg goin?!

the bolts are too big and numerous to drill out, and too rusty to undo as they crumble, so ill just have to grind through the nuts and hope to not chop too much fibreglass.. they're past the point of wd40 or crc helpin i think, have already tried that option... but yeah deffinitley nylocks and stainless bolts when re-assembling..

buy some 1mm cutting wheels for your grinder as they cut fine and more precise
as for doing the new ones up you,ll have to look at it with bonnet of and maybe drill some new holes in an easier spot but you have to remember that someone put them there so its not undoable.

you under stand more when you see the bonnet off

another thing before you put your bonnet back on ckeak your feul system is perfect and what eva else is under there is right because its a pain in the arse to take every thing off again
have fun

yeah for sure terry... ive got the thin disks already, will have fun cutting through 8 or so biggish rusty nuts... obviously somehow they got em in there in the first place, dont know how though hahaha.. yeah will deffinitely be replacing the fuel lines and making sure everything in that area is ridgy didge as once i do all the dash wiring i will have to remove all that too if i wana go under the bonnet again... let the good times roll...

i did get those bastard bolts off on the weekend too... about 15 all up, not too much scarred fibreglass until i found there were no gaps between the bonnet and guards at the front! arrggh! some previous owner has fibregalssed over the gaps so i didnt know where they sopped or started... dunno if they were after a smooth lookin front end or what but was a pain in the ass to figure out where to cut with the angle grinder.. ended up doin it fine but will need a bit of a repaint..

the fuel tank has seen better days, will give it a good scrub up and repaint to look the goods. i found the area above the front left shock mount has copped a hammering so the body has a big gouge in that area now, not that big a deal though.. will repair probably... this week! shit load of wiring to do woohooo!