Thread: Holes in aluminium door frames, or Rivnuts?

The frame of the door is steel not aluminium (only the outer skin is aluminium), but is fairly thin and moreover, the window frame part of it is not readily accessible. Presumably you need to attach on the top, front and rear only, as the glass winds into the bottom edge.

What I would be looking at is cutting a short slot in the edge of the door at each point, and inserting a short section of plate with a nut welded to it, locating opposite a hole on the inside, and rivetting the plate to either the inside of the door, or with a right angle bend, to the edge. But you would need to investigate this for space. It may be possible to go in from the window channel side, but this would mean removing the channel, a lot more work.

Rivnuts may well work, but I would worry about whether the space behind the inner surface of the frame is adequate for them and whether the inner surface is even. The advantage of my suggestion is that the load of the bolts is spread over a wider area, but with a rivnut it is only over a very small circle around the hole, and I fear the metal is too thin for this to be very strong.

If you really want to make a very good job of it regardless of the amount of work, removing the outer door skin would allow the insertion of full length reinforcing along each edge of the window frame, with tapped holes or nuts for the screens to bolt to. These could also be inserted by cutting holes in the frame for them to be inserted, but this would weaken the door frames and really should be welded up, with all the consequent refinishing problems.

Hope this helps.

John

What I would be looking at is cutting a short slot in the edge of the door at each point, and inserting a short section of plate with a nut welded to it, locating opposite a hole on the inside, and rivetting the plate to either the inside of the door, or with a right angle bend, to the edge. But you would need to investigate this for space. It may be possible to go in from the window channel side, but this would mean removing the channel, a lot more work.

Thanks, John. I'm finding it a bit difficult to visualise, however. Any chance of drawing what you have in mind?

I'll see what I can do. Might take a while though.

John

I made up some aluminium framed mesh screens for the inside of my back doors so we could have the windows down when sleeping in the car. I was originally going to bolt them on using rivnuts or something similar, but in the end I simply used some good quality self-adhesive velcro. The frames are only light, but they have never shown any signs of movement. It's surprising just how strong 'good quality' velcro is. I don't need to remove my screens, but I'm sure if you use a quality product such as 3M you would be able to fit and remove them many times.
I don't know if velcro will suit your needs, but I found it to be a simple solution........and no need to drill any holes.

Cheers, Murray

Actually, I think Murray may have suggested a good idea - How about having the screen velcroed to the inside of the door, but with the edges along the top, front and rear extended to closely fit the edge of the door, so that it comes against the door seal when the door is closed, making it impossible to dislodge without opening the door. Most Defender doors have plenty of room and compression on the seal to allow this, and at worst you would only have to adjust the striker plate and perhaps add a strip of foam along the lower door edge to ensure a dust seal.

John