Saddle maintenance Part 2: Bolt me down

So after doing all that work tying and reshaping my Brooks B73, I decided to swap my saddle with a friend as she was finding the saddle I bought her for her present, a little uncomfortable.  It's an old Brooks B66 Champion, not a saddle I'm that familiar with as it's not made anymore; it's been replaced by the Flyer model.  From what I can see, the B66 Champion differs from the standard B66 by being a little narrower which probably is why my friend found it a bit uncomfortable.  The top of it is more similar to the Brooks B17, the standard B66 is more like the B73 I had before.  I ended up installing it then noticed that one of the nuts was missing... dang!  The thing was loose and kept on coming out of the hole in the spring, which made the saddle uncomfortable to ride on, I had to fix this.

The nuts were some oddball imperial size, so on I went to my favourite online shop and ordered some replacement bolt & nuts.  Riding on it with a loose bolt actually made it a bit lopsided and uncomfortable, which probably contributed to why my friend didn't like it all that much.  Also I tend to like lifting the bike up from the back of the saddle which wasn't really possible in it's current state.

Anyway, firstly I had to remove the nuts and bolts.  I bought two bolts and nuts to replace the existing bottom ones and would reuse the old nut on the missing upper stud.  The two upper studs form part of the upper frame and aren't replaceable as far as I know.   The nut size is some oddball imperial measurement (I grew up with the metric system) just a smidge about 13mm which makes it 1/4" or 5/16", either way it wasn't a size I had so I filed a stamped metal wrench I had which did the job.

Now the the undercarriage apart, I got the new bolts out.  I only noticed that the bolts actually have a slightly ovalised shank to stop it from rotating around when you tighten the nuts, nice.  With a bit of Loctite on them I tightened it back up.

 I put back the right hand saddle loop as well which helped restore the level (I removed it earlier so I wouldn't lose it riding it in it's broken state).  The saddle feels very different with all the undercarriage nice and tight, a hell of a lot more comfy, well at least from what I could tell riding it around in circles in my backyard.  I actually think this saddle is probably more appropriate for how I have the bike setup anyway, my bike has the bars about an inch or two lower than the saddle and my friend has a much more upright setup.  That's all for now, thanks for reading.