Avant boot gas strut issue

[oxblood8]

Hi All

In a bit of a pickle with my right hand side gas strut mount in the boot. Over time it was getting looser and looser until recently I attempted a fix using a Plusnut which did not work as the force of the strut has again ripped it away.



So now, I am wondering if I can put a plate behind the hole to strengthen it and use a standard washer and nut on the back. Question is, in the pic below, can I drill an access hole somewhere in the red circle in order to access the strut mount?

[oxblood8]

So finally got around to fixing the boot strut on the weekend. In the end, was fairly straight-forward. Hopefully it does the job.

First thing we did was poke some wires in the existing holes in the pillar to ensure that there was indeed a cavity inside. Once we had worked this out, we drilled around a 1 inch hole which gave easy access to the back of the mount where the failed Rivnut was sitting.



Next thing to do was to remove the Rivnut. This was done using a screwdriver to just gently pry back and forth until it came out. Luckily the Rivnut we initially used had not splayed out properly so was relatively easy to remove.

Then we poked a bolt through the back with washers either side in order to straighten out the metal.

Before




After




Once that was sorted, we put a large washer on the front and rear of the ball bolt, tighten up and it was job done.





As I said, it will be a watch and see if it works, at this stage it seems very solid.