using a rivnut to attach droplink to control arm?
using a rivnut to attach droplink to control arm?
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A¢idBurn

Original Poster:

3 posts

Hey, I've been changing out the bushings on the front wishbones of my mk4 golf, whilst tightening the bolt that attaches the droplink to the control arm the welded nut on the inside of the arm broke free and is now free spinning,

The inside of the arm isn't accessible, so reattaching or holding the captive bolt isn't possible and as it's made of stamped sheet metal there isn't enough meat to tap threads or use a helicoil.

Do you reckon I could get away with drilling out the hole and using a rivnut to bolt to? The torque spec for that bolt is 15mm + 90° so it's not torqued down a huge amount, it's more of a case of will it hold up to driving force

Increadibly annoying as that droplink bolt was the last one to go back on when refitting the arm meaning if this nut hadn't given out the job would be done banghead

I'd prefer not to have to replace the arm as I've just pressed in polybushes and I'm worried about damaging them trying to remove and re - press them into a new arm. But that's what I'll do if rivnut would be too weak

paul_c123

1,867 posts

16 months

Simple answer, no.

ssray

1,288 posts

248 months

I've got a mk4 estate, I've had a similar problem
New arb bush and the thread stripped on the droplink mounting point.
I tried a helicoil type thing but this pulled out after a while.
I'm going to replace the arm, it's not a huge job , YouTube is your friend.
I'm also going to use the nearest to stock spec as I can as lots seem below par

A¢idBurn

Original Poster:

3 posts

ssray said:
I've got a mk4 estate, I've had a similar problem
New arb bush and the thread stripped on the droplink mounting point.
I tried a helicoil type thing but this pulled out after a while.
I'm going to replace the arm, it's not a huge job , YouTube is your friend.
I'm also going to use the nearest to stock spec as I can as lots seem below par
Already got a new arm on the way, already dropped them out out previously to change over the bushes so not too worried about swapping the arm smile - the welded nut gave out as I was putting the N/s back on

If anyone has any tips for extracting a polybush from the control arm front bushing unharmed enough to be reused (single piece type with a crush tube from superpro) thats what I'm worried about (and why I was considering the rivnut) as ideally I don't want to have to rebuy the polybushes when they haven't done a single mile wobble