Changing studs on A horn grilles

[Thomas Frisardi]

A couple of the studs on my horn grilles are broken, a couple of them turn in the casting. My guess is that these were pressed in. Can I expect to pull them out without damaging the grille casting? These are the tiny studs on the grilles, not the bigger ones on the turn signal lights. The studs are 3 mm with 5.5 ATF nuts.

[Mike Wilson]

I'd try to unscrew them first. I've seen threaded studs but I think those were repros. One solution might be to remove the studs, tap the hole and reinsert threaded studs with Loctite.

One of the biggest issues with original A grills is that usually they are so pitted that rechroming them isn't worth it or is very time-consuming and expensive.

[Thomas Frisardi]

I would unscrew them, but they turn in the casting without coming out. So, I assume that they are not threaded into the casting, but either pressed in or cast in place. If they are cast in, I doubt that I can remove them without damaging the grilles. These are probably the original grilles and they are somewhat pitted, but not too badly. Anyway, I would rather save them than replace them. Does anyone know whether a strong tug on the studs will damage the casting, or leave a clean hole that I can tap for a new stud? Should I drill instead, though that will be tricky?

[Martin Benade]

If you put an 8mm thread size nut over the stud as a spacer, a washer and the correct size nut on top, you might be able to pull the stud out of the grille by tightening the smaller nut down the threads. You also might have to hold the tip of the stud from turning with small vice-grips. If this doesn't work, some 3M double-stick tape could make a nearly invisible mounting, leave the studs for locating pins. I think drilling and rethreading would be very difficult to do without coming through the front.

[Thomas Frisardi]

I am still interested in re-using my original horn grilles, if possible. Four of the six studs are intact, so they might be made to work acceptably as is, but I only have one nut. I measure a 0.5 mm pitch on the thread. I measure 2.75 mm when I put a caliper across the threads, but this does not seem to be a real size. Can someone tell me what the correct thread size is? I have tried everything in my used hardware assortment, without any luck.