Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Corrosion Running Board Strips and Fixings

Yes, but countersunk screws, to avoid bulges in the rubbers strips..They are available if one searches a bit. As I said, I fitted SS about half a year ago. I took off the rubbers the other day, no visible corrosion present so far. However there was moisture under thee rear end of the strips, in spite of the car being dry for about three weeks. I guess the water almost never dries out underneath the strips. I will loosen some screws and inspect more closely today, report will follow...

Robbie, when I re-fitted the rubber inserts I first filled the alloy channel with Waxoil so after the rubber is squeezed in there are no voids left for water to collect, bit messy to work with, but worth doing

Good idea, thanks. However, I already bought ACF50, so I will apply several coats and see what happens the next months. I intended to inspect under the screws today, but I just got home after a looong day, so it will have to wait until tomorow.

I removed my running board strips today and found the steel bolt heads rusted away to almost nothing, the nuts were fine having had a good coat of Waxoil or similar. there was no corrosion underneath the strips and the holes in the wing show no signs of degradation at all. I'm going to try this suggestion and have ordered 3mm nylon nuts and bolts from Westfield, I'll fit them next week and let you know how I get on.

As you see the steel bolt heads have rusted away, they are coach bolts and so locate in a square cutout on the aluminium strip. I do not know if there was originally a slotted head in these bolts. I was lucky not to find any corrosion anywhere else, the nuts and washers were protected by underbody spray and the unexposed thread remained in good functional condition. The rust was well advanced and may soon have been a problem and so this was a worthwhile exercise,

I sourced the 3mm x 20mm nylon bolts from Westfield and have fitted the running board rubber strips back onto the Morgan using the nylon bolts as positioning and anchoring while 3M double sided neoprene tape does the job of fixing the aluminium channel to the bodywork. I may make a small adjustment and fit 4mm bolts as the 3mm are fairly light and the square holes will just accept the 4mm size. The old bolts were 3.5mm and I did not find this size in nylon only 3 or 4mm, I went with 3mm but in hindsight should have gone up a size. I re-fitted the rubber strips using lithium grease as a lubricant and a trim tool as the muscle, it was quite easy..

Here are some pictures of the process.

Update on this, the 4mm bolt heads are 0.6mm higher and would cause the rubber strip to bump a little more when fitted and so I'll stick with the 3mm bolts.

I found a solution at the Shuttleworth collection with the added benefit of cleaning the soles of your shoes.

Excellent find John!

Nice, looks like a piece of toast - might try that

The Roadster had bulging tread strips and I was planning to replace the rusted nuts and bolts exactly as you have.
But with silencers under each side it would have been a difficult job so procrastinated until I bought the Plus 8, it has no tread strips.

I do like John's idea of a strip of doormat, I wonder if one could replace the rubber with a thin strip of rubber backed matting?