Miata Mailing List: June 1992, Message #77
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   From: (none)
Subject: Re: Tenax fasteners
   Date: (none)


bart@netcom.com (Harry Bartholomew) writes:
> 	I had a similar, idiotic situation where my tonneau was replaced
> when one tenax malfunctioned such that I couldn't get it off. (Apparently
> neither could the dealer.) Don't know whether the failure was in the tenax
> male or female.
> 
> 						Bart

Hmm, I'd bet it was the female -- I've had two of 'em go.

Look inside of one and it starts to make sense.  They're constructed along the
lines of one of these modern-day, engineering-nerd mechanical pencils: three
fragile 'fingers' of thin, springy brass sheet arranged in a circle with a
spring loaded ring around their common tail.  (Bowlers can think of them as
the thumb, index and middle fingers when planted in the ball.)  Sliding the
ring (knob on top of the fastener) back towards the tails allows the three to
spread apart.  At its end, each finger curves slightly away from and then back
toward the center, so that when the ring (knob) presses them together they fit
tightly around the stud (male part -- which really does look like a 'male
part').  Those brass fingers will only flex back and forth so many times
before they snap off -- and then enough room is left for the other two so that
they don't feel the urge to spread apart when the ring (knob) is pulled back.
I haven't found a graceful way to get 'em off when they're broken like that --
hoping to replace the old ones *just before* they break. =8^)
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  James Miller -- developing Unix software at (!) IBM -- Austin
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