Mounting Thrustmaster Wheel

[pmc]

Maybe one of you has an idea on how to handle this before I hit the hardware store tomorrow and get in over my head! 

I think that this is an elementary fastener issue, but it's new to me anyway. And I been drinking. 

I have a USB wheel I'm mounting to a control panel. It's a Thrustmaster Pro Digital 2 Nascar wheel if it matters.

The bottom plate on the shell is held on by screws that come up from the bottom (like pretty much all consumer electronics). Flip it over and unscrew it, and the wheel shell splits in two.

I want to mount the wheel to the control panel by bolting the bottom plate to my control panel. So I'm going to drill holes through the bottom plate of the shell and through the MDF Control Panel. But how to fasten it? If I bolt it down, I can no longer screw the bottom plate back to the rest of the wheel shell.

I'm thinking a) make keyholes in the plate. Don't like that idea because hard playing could jostle it loose. b) drill holes, then insert carriage bolts from the inside of the shell and hanging down. Leave 'em dangling while connecting the bottom plate to the top of the shell while laying on my back (so the carriage bolts remain in place by gravity). Then slide bolt tips through control panel and use nuts to connect the two. Easy to undo as required. But might be pain in the arse if the bolts get pushed back into the shell.

Alternately, maybe I can use butterfly nuts or t-bolts or something like that inside the shell? Is there a standard way to do this? TIA.

-pmc

[pmc]

In case anyone else has to figure out something like this, here's what I ended up doing:

Drilled 3/8" holes in the bottom plate of the shell and through the MDF control panel. Dropped hex bolts through the holes and taped them in place (from the inside) with masking tape. I might epoxy them in place later. Closed the shell and screwed it together. Carefully dropped the whole thing onto the MDF and let the bolts fall through the holes in the MDF. Hex nuts from the bottom and I'm up and running. My only fear is that if it's too tight, I might not be able to get it apart again if the hex bolts start to spin along with the nut. That's why I'm thinking of epoxying the bolts into place on the inside.

-pmc