I was interested in the description of your cover over the original gear lever hole being descrbed as 'structural'. Particularly when you remember that it was originally filled with what must have been a structural grade of rubber grommet.

The problem with welding it now is that you need to remove ALL of the brass or it will tend to screw around with the weld quality.

I like the structural grommet description!

I posted this on another thread I think regarding the same car issue??? but got no response, I'm still curious if anyone cares to fill me in.

"From reading everything on this site over time I've seen many posts referring to rego's & have been somewhat perplexed.

I kind of feel bad for you guys down under, up here (the US) the only things we seem to have to comply to are emission standards & thats only after a certain year, I think it's 1977 or 78,prior to that anything goes, thats why you can have a 1000HP 68 Chev nova & be street legal. There are laws regarding cat converter removals & things like that & you wont get your car licensed unless it passes emissions inspection. That is unless it fails & you go spend I think $300 & it still fails then you get an exemption & your tabs anyways. So you can still have a POS emissions spewing failed inspection car & get your tabs, go figure!

Other then that the occasional safety inspection if you re-register a car into another state, but when I've done that they never check engine size, or brakes, or anything else other then making sure it has the proper running/brake lights & general safety overall, it's a rather cursory inspection.

You guys must have the safest cars in the world if they check all that stuff! Why are they so strict about this, did too many people go off driving into the outback & die ? Here there's a lot of wide open country but somebody usually drives by to save you butt if your stranded.

I've just always wondered why it seems so difficult to deal with licensing there."

I gotto agree, it seems odd since it was not structural in the first place, I suppose it could be argued that now that another hole has been cut for the new lever this one has to be filled to replace original strength, but still.

Australian governments have been screwing the motoring public in general since the mid 70's once they realised the enormous cash cow the motor car can be.
And they are still getting away with putting back bugger all!
The voting public will never learn in Aus.

This forum makes me laugh some times.
You laugh at the thought of it being refered to as structual. Well originally it was just a gearstick hole.
But its not original anymore is it. Its modified.
You take 1 big hole in the tunnel and then you make another big hole down a bit further.
Do you truely believe that it is not majorly weakened? Well now its twice as weak as it originally was.
Now think about the gearbox mounts. Most people just put it flat on the floor and put metal plates inside to spread the weight.
But you went one step further and welded mounts inside the tunnel.
Now where in relation to the old gearstick hole is the gearbox mounts. Roughly guessing with the size of the box, i think the new mounts would be under the original gearstick hole or under the new and old gearstick holes.
So being the top of the tunnel is weakened from the new and old hole, add the weight of the gearbox loading on the vertical sides of the tunnel, not the floor. Im sure that the structual integrity of the tunnel can easily be debated by the engineer.
Im actually suprised the engineer is happy with the new mounts. (are the welds painted?) If the hole is covered by a brased in peice of metal, what tells him the mounts are not brased on too?
As for pop rivets - engineers dont like them if they see them. They would prefer the plate be held in by nut and bolt rather than pop rivets.

I wonder why you bothered with brazing it in the first place?

Pop rivets are a bad idea, my uncle told me how he pop riveted a new floor pan into the rear of his old FJ a while ago and got knocked back for it.

In my opinion, you can't beat a TIG, however a MIG runs a pretty close second.

WHY did I braze it, I asking myself that right now.

The mounts and re-enforcing around the new hole were MIG welded. I think at the time I brazzed the old gear stick hole over coz it seemed easier. I looks neat and you would be hard pressed to tell now it's painted.

I can understand why the engineer wants a second opinion regarding the welding certification. Wont have any problems there.

The carpets comming out Sat, will cut out the section in question with the plasma and MIG weld a new one in.

Thanks for the explanation Burt, I wondered if it was just Gov. regulation at work.

It just seems so labor & time intensive for them to warrant having programs like you guy's are describing that they must be charging plenty of money from the public.

At what age of vehicle do they not care if you modify it?

name the engineer
so every1 else dont make the same mistake you did by using him

are you kidding? don't use a thorough engineer? hmmm. keep the engineers name a secret. I know that when my ute goes for it's inspections that it will most certainly pass 100%, even if it takes 1000 times to go through. I've been in accidents in structurally perfect cars and been lucky to walk away, I'm not going to be taking any risks at all.