One point that can see major wear on BJ8 Healeys is the hole in the gearbox cover where the shifter surround screws down. Every time the screw is removed and refitted in accessing the gearbox the hole in the fiberglass becomes enlarged. Using bigger screws will work for a while, but eventually over the years this hole can become too big for any reasonably sized fastener. A good fix for the problem, which has become SOP for just about every BJ8 gearbox cover I remove, is replacing the standard sheet metal screw with a machine screw, and mounting a threaded permanent anchor for this screw in the cover. There are a number of ways to do this, but one of the simplest is just to glue a tee nut to the underside, right in the enlarged hole. Quick, cheap, and no special tools needed.

Tee nuts come in many different thread sizes and pitches, and a good hardware store will have a selection. Coarse thread is most common. My preference is a number 10 size screw, and to match the rest of the fasteners I use a 10-32 (fine thread), which isn’t the easiest tee nut to find. Any small tee nut that is not too tall will work, just be sure to get a screw a half inch long or so that will fit it.

Tee nut bases also come in different configurations. Some have bumps on the top for friction gripping, some have holes for fasteners, and some have three or more pointed prongs projecting up that lock the tee nut into the material in which it is seated. Prong based tee nuts offer the best twist resistance, and are my preference. The trick is to avoid drawing the prongs into the fiberglass too far. Figure 1 shows a 10-32 pronged tee nut. Note that the threaded barrel of the nut is about a third again longer than the prongs. Any longer than this is not necessary; the top of the barrel should be flush with the top surface of the cover, or slightly proud, when drawn in place. The optimum barrel length would be one that projected beyond the prongs the thickness of the cover plus 1/32", but close will do.

To mount the tee nut in place you will also need a round spacer with an ID equal to the OD of the barrel, and just a little shorter than the screw you will use but a little longer than the barrel ( see Figure 2). A stack of washers works fine if you don’t have a spacer like the one shown. Mix up about a teaspoonful of JB Weld. Thoroughly clean off the underside of the cover in the area of the hole, making sure all grease is gone. Swabbing with lacquer thinner is a good final prep. If the hole in the cover is not big enough for the barrel of the tee nut to poke through, carefully drill it out to the requisite diameter. Make sure you drill the exact spot on the gearbox cover where the tee nut will be directly under the hole in the surround mount. Test fit the cover and surround in place in the car if there is any doubt.

Next, gob some JB Weld on the tee nut base and insert it through the hole from the underside of the cover. Put a smear of grease on one end of the spacer and on the threads of the screw. Then, holding the tee nut in place, stand the spacer grease-down on top of the cover over the tee nut and run in the screw and washer to hold it in place (Figures 3 and Figure 4 ). Important—if you are using a prong-base tee nut it is vital that the prongs not be drawn too far into the fiberglass, lest you exacerbate the situation you are trying to correct. With the tee nut exactly located, turn the screw until the barrel extends above the top of the cover, into the spacer, and you feel the prongs just contact the underside of the cover. At that point very gently snug the screw to draw the ends of the prongs up into the fiberglass no more than 1/32". For a 10-32 screw this would be one full turn, for a coarser-threaded screw it would be less. The object is to imbed the prong points without cracking the fiberglass, so be careful not to overdo it.

Next, with the tee nut held in place by the screw and spacer, turn the cover upside down and spread the rest of the JB Weld on and around the base of the nut so that it is well-glued. Let the cover remain in this position for at least 12 hours while the adhesive hardens, after which turn it upright and remove the screw and spacer (Figure 5). In 24 hours the top of the tee nut barrel can be trimmed down if it sticks up too high. The best final fit for the shifter surround is achieved by oversizing the hole in the mount so that it goes over the tee nut (Figure 6), but this step is not vital to the success of the endeavor. As long as the top of the barrel is below the carpet the hole in the mount needs only to be large enough to accommodate your screw. Figure 7 shows the finished installation, the shifter surround fastened down with a Phillips head machine screw in permanent threads.