Holes in aluminium door frames, or Rivnuts?

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popotla

Active Member
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198
Location
Berlin, Germany
I’m about to have removable window grilles fitted to the inside of my rear and front doors.

The guy doing it suggests simply drilling through the inner layer of aluminium and bolting the frames onto the door that way.

My idea was to fit Rivnuts or something similar. That would give something strong and lasting into which to fit the bolts (which in the case of the front door, will be coming off and being put back pretty regularly). I figure the threads, such as they are, made in an aluminium door frame, not very thick, would soon wear out. The guy claims, however, that Rivnuits or similar can’t be successfully fitted on the frames. I don’t have any experience which tells me they could.

What’s the solution?
 
Captive nuts? Would mean a bit of extra work in cutting out the original holes but would solve it.

Else some kind of wall tie system which expands or opens when you do the bolt up and grips the inside of the skin?
 
wouldn't that have the same problem as he's worried about Trewey, that the thread would be likely to be damaged by frequent doing and undoing?
 
you can buy a bolt what has a pin in it it's inserted on it's side and then rolled over and the pin swivels forming a T shape then ya put the nut on it and tighten it up. It has a slot cut in the end what ya put a screw driver in so's it dunt turn while ya tightening it up.

But i thought the whole idea of security screen was that they were supposed to be permanently fixed?? If you drill an hole in the door frames big enough to take riv nuts then you are going to seriously weaken them..
 
you can buy a bolt what has a pin in it it's inserted on it's side and then rolled over and the pin swivels forming a T shape then ya put the nut on it and tighten it up. It has a slot cut in the end what ya put a screw driver in so's it dunt turn while ya tightening it up
Int that what Ikea use as the basis for the fixings on all their furniture???!!!:D:D:D
 
the things you call rivetnuts are infact threaded rivets but you need the tool to insert them. they are used on many vehicles now including land rovers. you can find them holding the fuel filter to the bulkhead on defenders. once they are fitted correctly they are very secure and would take quite a bit of removing. the only thing with them is they are made fom aluminium so you need to be careful not to strip the inner threads by over tightning.
 
You need 2 nuts, 1 bolt and 1 washer that fit the thread of the rivnut. Put a clearance drill through 1 nut so that it has no thread and slides up and down the bolt.
Push the rivnut into the hole, wind the threaded nut and washer onto the bolt, then slide the drilled nut onto the bolt under them, then screw the bolt into the rivnut. It should go in far enough that the thread of the bolt is fully engaged with the thread of the rivnut. Tighten the threaded nut / washer down onto the drilled nut and wind it up tight, so that the bolt tries to pull the rivnut out of the hole, but it can't because the drilled nut is holding it in. The rivnut will then deform inside the hollow section as designed.
Loosen the threaded nut and test to see if the rivnut is tight - if not, wind it up a bit more.

Piece of ****.
 
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