Is there a factory specification for the location of the holes in the TR4
(TR4A and TR250, too, I suppose) trunk lid for the license-plate bracket?
Can I get folks to measure their cars?
Here is why I care:
I bought a repro factory-style luggage rack. There are no instructions. If
there were instructions, I'm sure they would say to bolt together the
license plate, luggage rack and existing license-plate bracket. The problem
is that my car's trunk lid apparently never had a USA license-plate bracket.
The lid looks original enough. The paint on the inside of it looks the same
as the paint in the trunk. The tubular frame inside has the place to park
the manual trunk-support rod as you would expect in a TR4 this early.
The only holes in the trunk lid for USA license plate mounting are two holes
which fasten the plate to via its bottom holes. There are two holes
outboard of the license plate which may have been for a non-USA number
plate. These holes have been covered by small reflectors. See
http://www.lotuseuropa.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=philethier&i
d=014_11
Since I had no factory bracket, I bought one from TRF. This is a stamped
piece with four bends and three slots. Obviously, the two outboard slots
are for mounting the license plate. This leaves the center slot for
mounting the bracket to the trunk lit. If the mounting bolts were to be
1/4-inch, the maximum center-to-center distance for two bracket holes would
seem to be 1-3/8 inches. With these holes this close together, the rack is
practically a three-point mounting, the other two being at the trunk hinges.
So:
Are there supposed to be two 1/4" holes?
Are they 1-3/8 inches center-to-center?
How far are the centers of these holes from the bottom edge of the trunk
lid?
The kit included a pair of bolts, nuts, washers, and large rubber washers.
Where do the rubber washers go?
I assume that the license plate should be the rear-most part on the car in
this assembly, so that only a screw-head would show on the plate. That is,
the plate should not be obscured by the square tabs on the luggage rack.
Phil Ethier West Side Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa 65/2597, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1993 Suburban, 1962 TR4 CT2846L
pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/ http://www.lotusowners.com
"TOOLS? Hell, any fool can work with tools. It takes a real mechanic to
work with this junk." -Orv Ethier, 1921-2004. First Shot Naval Vets, Pearl
Harbor Survivor.
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