Yesterday I posted a thread about what a disappointing morning I’d had trying to fit my luggage rack.

I spent some time looking at the responses and in particular whether the spare wheel had slipped down, and that in any event some fettling will be needed to make the rack fit.

I looked at the spare wheel and it hadn’t moved BUT I did notice that there is quite a big gap between the Cobra light and the spare. Plus the wheel was not central in the hole, it was much nearer at the bottom than the top. It was however correctly located in the spindle.

Checked out other photos and definitely other cars spare wheels are sat higher and nearer to the Cobra light than mine.

Removed the wheel and noticed that the bracket the spindle attaches to/located the wheel had slotted holes and more importantly the lower slots had the ability to slide up about half an inch, but the top slot was at the other end of its travel which would prevent the bracket being slid upwards thus locating the spare wheel nearer the Cobra light.

So I took the bracket off and after 30 or so minutes with a file I’d enlarged the top hole enough to enable the bracket to be moved upwards by a good half an inch.

I then attached the rack to the spindle, loosely, so I could then slide the bottom brackets onto the rack and hopefully attach them to the over riders.

One bracket obviously fitted easily but there was no way the second side would fit - although it was not so far adrift as it was yesterday. A bit of head scratching and I swapped the bottom locating brackets over, and low and behold, a small amount of springing into place and the rack was on joy

I then slackened off all the adjustable bits so it could settle into the best/most natural position, tightened everything up and hooray the rack was on! How easy it will be to get back on if I need to get to the spare I don’t know, I might check that out some time but not today.

Overall yesterday’s gloom has lifted - although I’m still not 100% certain that my car did actually have a father! [Linked Image]
[Linked Image]

So sincere thanks to all who have helped, the totality of the answers gave me the confidence to keep going!