Hoping to fit upper and lower braces on Bank holiday weekend, done a search, general consensus for the upper brace is too drill an 8mm hole for the nuts and bolts, so i need some M8 bolts but there is no mention of how long the bolts need to be, so to those of you who have fitted these what length bolts did you use?

T.I.A Andy

i used 10mm m10 sized nuts/bolts, i think they were about 1 1/2 - 2 inch long

+1

I used stainless nylock nuts, bolts and washers (Hex bolts M10 x 30mm long), bought them from

Vehicle Wiring Products Tel: 0115 9305454, or any good hardware supplier would have them.

Peter

Edited 11 August, 201015 yr by Silver Bullet

+1

I used stainless nylock nuts, bolts and washers (Hex bolts M10 x 30mm long), bought them from

Vehicle Wiring Products Tel: 0115 9305454, or any good hardware supplier would have them.

Peter

+1 too

Don't need to go too long else they will hit the upper the spring mount. 30mm is ample.

yup dont go too long, 30mm should be fine, you can always cut them down but save yourself the job.

Make sure you treat the holes you have created with rust killer too.

You can also consider using the the lower strut brace screws and rivet nuts, as these will allow you to screw down from the top of the strut and be able to remove strut brace if required, easy if working on car.

The lower strut brace uses

VN90810601 x2 RIVETTE £1.47 EACH

VN10417601 X2 SCREW £0.67 EACH

The rivet and asm are screwed into pre drilled holes(already in the lower subframe) and as they are screwed down the rivets will compress and stay in the hole allowing removal of the screws and brace if needed.

i wish i did it this way on the upper strut brace which is how it is on the Audi S3's

that sounds pretty good, looks like ill be doing it this way then, but for the upper brace you would obviously have to drill the holes any way so no biggy really plus it will give a better result

Cheers folks

Mine's done this way up

remember to fit with both wheels off the ground

Mine's done this way up

Did mine the same way

personally i'd invest in one of these: http://www.screwfix.com/prods/15976/Drill-Bits/Specialist-Drill-Bits/Step-Drill-4-22mm

Pilot drill first then rip through with the step bit. That metal is nearly an inch thick if i remember correctly and the step drill chews through it nicely

Dave

personally i'd invest in one of these: http://www.screwfix.com/prods/15976/Drill-Bits/Specialist-Drill-Bits/Step-Drill-4-22mm

Pilot drill first then rip through with the step bit. That metal is nearly an inch thick if i remember correctly and the step drill chews through it nicely

Dave

I doubt you would get that big drill bit close enough due to items in the way, maybe though.

The metal is no way near inch thick, unless you intend to drill through top spring too.

Edited 14 August, 201015 yr by Bowders1

I doubt you would get that big drill bit close enough due to items in the way, maybe though.

The metal is no way near inch thick, unless you intend to drill through top spring too.

You can cause its what i used

You can cause its what i used

Cool, not a bad price for drill bit like that , can see that being useful for a lot of things .