Door Card - Loose Screw Holes

[BmthRob]

Hi All,

3 of the 4 screws that hold the door card to the inner door have stripped out and the door card/trim is flapping about. As a couple of the screw positions had already been moved and more holes drilled I decided to do the job "properly" and bought a fibreglass repair kit with the intention of filling in the holes and re-drilling. After a hour or so of mucking about all I ended up with was a sticky mess, finding it almost impossible to stuff the fibreglass into the holes and make it stay there.

Does anyone have a better/easier way of fixing the holes (with fibreglass or otherwise) or should I just move the screws to another new position and be done with it.

Cheers,

Rob.

[marshalla]

Not a TVR owner, but have had the same experience with a Lotus. Rather than try to fix the GRP and wait for the problem to happen again, I used the lazy man's solution - cut down rawl/plasplugs inserted into the holes in the inner door.

[V8 GRF]

You need to use something like chopped mat filler to fill holes otherwise, as you found, the resin will just run out.

[brett84]

tigerseal it on

[GJR]

I'm going to be doing this with mine in a week or so. My passenger side is fine, but the driver side panel is loose after having come off once or twice in the past. I'm not sure how big the holes are going to be, but I was thinking of some kind of metal fixing, riveted in place, that could be screwed into?

Don't know how it'll work out, but just a thought.

[brett84]

can you get a speed clip in? like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Speed-fastener-U-cli...

i need to put mine back on the at the weekend and haven't checked out the hole situation yet

[GJR]

brett84 said:

can you get a speed clip in?

I considered these too, but they would have to be bonded (epoxy) inside the door. I found this illustration on google.

I'd been thinking somewhere along the lines of this riveted to the inside of the fibre glass. I think it'd make the door and panela lot more robust for removal in the future.

[brett84]

you could always just bond something to the inside of the door and then self tap into that,
like a rectangle of thin ally or even wood? thoroughly bonded/glued to the panel behind the screw hole then pilot drill and self tap to that. It's never seen so doesn't need to be pretty, just secure. And it's not like the card is removed often, or is it?

[ads]

What about Rivnuts. They might work, depending how much room you have behind.

[BmthRob]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Rivnuts look like fun but I went with rawl plugs as I had some to hand. Drilled existing holes to 6.5mm (will vary depending on what size plugs you have), insert plugs, check they don't foul the window, refit trim.

Not sure how long-lasting a repair this will be but it seems pretty secure to me and it's certainly a lot easier than messing about with fibreglass and resin.

Rob.