Ever since I had the car the tailgate strut bolt has been missing so been using a prop. I have finally decided to put some effort into doing something about it. Have been told by the previous owner that what happened was the boot was stuck open so some bright spark smacked the gas strut till it came out of the bodywork (rather than taking off the clip). This has left me with a hole which I can't do much with really. I tried using some sort of "chemical metal" resin thing (where you mix the things together quickly and have to apply it in seconds) in conjunction with a tee nut with the prongs bent out, but that just snapped off quite quickly (so that bodge didn't work).

In a moment of inspiration I got the idea of using string with a screw tied on the end to pull things up to the other side. Thinking further I decided to use a m8 tee nut with the prongs bent back and an m10 penny washer stuck together with double sided no more nails permanent tape.

My idea now is to apply a splodge of chemical metal type stuff (maybe araldite) around the m10 washer and pull it up into place with the string quickly and pull the string to try set it into place and hopefully the chemical metal will be displaced and take up any gaps. Then if I leave that to set, hopefully when I put the tailgate strut bolt on along with an m8 penny washer and some threadlock, hopefully the chemical metal will hold it well enough for me to tighten it up well enough to support the weight of the tailgate.

I would take it to a garage to see if they could weld it but with the glass, the glass seal, and tailgate seal closeby I don't know if it would be possible without damage. I guess I could still abandon the bodge plan and try that.

Any thoughts?

Edited 26 January, 200917 yr by anewman

A couple of spots of weld with a mig wont do any harm

you could mig that a piece of piddle, you would do more damage grinding the paint away than when acually welding tbh

And Araldite, particularly if heat cured, is stonger than chemical metal anyway.

Asked a back street garage that does welding and he said the only way he could see it being fixed is to put a riv nut in a plate and weld that to it, and mentioned "electric" welding. Does that sound about right? Thanks :-)

Well the method sounds ok but 'electric welding' could be anything, though I'm such they'd know what type of welding would be most suitable.

Well there's two small garages next to each other. the first said i needed electric welding which they didn't do and recommended the one next door which did do it. Presume the other uses an acetylene torch or something.

Tell the garage it just needs a bit of mig welding

Paid £45 :eek:

Ah well, is done now. Need to get myself a house with a big garage, buy a mig welder and get some scrap bits of metal to practice on