@El Frazoo posted:.... bolts instead of studs. Why in God's name was that not the original design? Removing those studs is not necessarily an easy thing to do while it is very easy thing to say.
Because magnesium is not a very strong metal to thread bolts into. If one installs a stud in magnesium - forever after, the threading off and on occurs on the stud, not in the magnesium. One can remove and install hardware hundreds of times without issue.
However, if you remove the studs and replace them with bolts, you must be exceedingly careful to make sure your hardware threads in far enough, your threads are spotlessly cleaned and lubricated, and that you aren't removing and reinstalling the bolts every week. Torque needs to be low. Thread in and out enough times, and it will strip, regardless.
You'll get away with it on an alternator stand, Other studs you may want to remove do better with a time-cert steel threaded insert.
This was not a case of doing something the cheap way - studs are more expensive than threaded holes and bolts, although in the case of the alternator stand, it's not the best way.
But it is the way the Sainted German Engineers chose to do it, and it was chosen on a day other than Friday, when there was no Octoberfest setting up in the square outside the windows.