Cooper S Body Shell Restoration Mystery

[Gary Schulz]

Hello,

I have an urgent request for help with some unknown "features" on my 1964 Cooper S restoration. I found the shop who is doing the work on the body was fixing up several locations on the floor where there appears to have been factory welded-in studs. The studs are either circular on top or part of stud plates and they all protrude through the bottom of the floor both in the front and the rear as shown in the pictures. Please do not be deceived by the apparent recent welding and signs of heat. This is just a result of them being worked on. You will notice the one near the lower front subframe mounting holes has a clearance around the inside panel and is welded to the bottom. In order to do this the panels would need to be pre-punched at the factory. One of the pictures shows one of the studs sticking through the bottom of the floor. I think it is something like a 1/4-20 size. What are these for? Are they original or do I need to have them removed?

Need to know before they get worked on further.
Thanks for any help...

Cooper S floor1.jpg

Front Stud Front Floor.jpg

Stud Plate Front Floor.jpg

Stud Front Floor Bottom View.jpg

Stud Plate Rear Floor by Pocket.jpg

[minimans]

Are these the studs and used by the factory to move the shells around Pre-assembly? Although I thought they were ggone by then?

[rich@minispares.com]

Are these the studs and used by the factory to move the shells around Pre-assembly? Although I thought they were ggone by then?

that's what they are, I thought they where gone by 62ish?

[mk1]

agreed factory mounting lugs.

[Gary Schulz]

Interesting. So does this mean my shell is from some much earlier car? My body number matches what BMIHT indicates. So these studs have no application in use they were just for some sort of fixturing purposes?

Do the FE numbers help tell if it is an earlier shell or is this just some leftover manufacturing operation?

Thanks for the responses. Your collective insight is very valuable.

Gary

[minimans]

you can get an approximate date of manufacture of the shell from the FE number post it here and there are a couple of guys that can give you an idea but it sounds like an earlier shell to me

[STG95F]

Sounds like an early shell . Is the seat fixings welded onto the cross member ?

[Gary Schulz]

FE Number here:

FE Number.jpg

The number on the floor pan:

F Number.jpg

[Gareth Brandt]

FE Number here:

FE Number.jpg

The number on the floor pan:

F Number.jpg

Thats long before any S was ever built......

[Dr S]

It's a light weight racer then

[JC T ONE]

Sorry to tell you, but that shell is not a S, most likely even too early to be a Cooper 997.

This is my FE no, and as you can see is it higher than yours, and my car is a early November 1961.


Jens Christian

[Simon776]

FE226192 is from late October/early November 1961.

[Gary Schulz]

Thanks for all the informative replies. Well, I have three shells and I thought that my front valence (which still has the body number that matches the soon to be released heritage certificate) came from this one. Unfortunately this means the original body is one of my cars that is in worse shape (rotten floors etc). Too bad since this shell is very very solid and largely unmolested...

[360gts]

Have to agree....this looks like an early shell
I have 1960 sitting here that has an F number starting with 137xxx.....it has those studs/bolts in the floor.
Your shell is most certainly not an S shell...sorry!