Iniamyen

While I was swapping my front seat bolts for locking ones, I managed to strip out the left driver's side bolt hole. At first I thought the new locking bolt was faulty, so I removed it and put the original bolt back in, and then realized after I got it in that it was free-spinning. So it's holding the seat in fine, but the threads are obviously stripped. Does anyone have any ideas of the best way to fix this? It's plenty tight to hold the seat, but I'd ideally like to get the locking bolt in there, and I'm unsure of how to remove it.

zeroptzero

The sheetmetal is too thin to do a heli-coil repair, the best way would be to put a nut under the bolt and tighten them down to spec. The one issue is that the bottom of the bolt is not visible on the driver side seat on the front holes. I don't know if there is an access plug under the car to make the bolt visible or if you have to drill a hole to get to the bolt. This could be tricky. Welding the seat down could be done but also tricky and the carpet would have to be cut.

Iniamyen

I actually wouldn't mind drilling an access hole from the bottom. I could easily plug it with something, assuming I wouldn't have to drill through anything important or load-bearing. I just have no idea where to drill from. I could measure and guesstimate

zeroptzero

Yeah take some measurements get the car lifted up, you could drill a pilot hole from top to bottom then use a hole saw to make a larger hole from the bottom. Just measure to make sure you aren't getting into the brake lines or fuel lines, you are probably safe in terms of structural issues, a small access hole won't hurt anything. Check around to see if there are some access plugs under there already, it's been a while since I was under that part of the car.

Lastly you could tap the existing hole larger and then use a larger bolt to hold down the seat, maybe go up by 1mm, taps are pretty easy to use and find.

dwight

+1mm might not be sufficient to create a new set of threads. The new minor (tap drill) diameter needs to exceed the old major (bolt) diameter. As a result of going to larger fasteners, you may get into a situation were the thread pitch is now too coarse for sufficient thread engagement.

zeroptzero

Thanks Dwight, yeah I guess it is definitely trial and error.

I had some threads strip on my hardtop and my valvecover, I was able to go up to 7mm from 6mm successfully in both cases keeping the same pitch (1mm),those were low torque applications and into aluminum, but the seat bolt threads could be a different application.

tireguyfromMA

I think what you need to do is install a rivnut. I've used these a few times to replace a stripped nut that's attached to sheet metal. Works just like a installing a rivet, but the other side will have a threaded nut. You can buy them in all different sizes too.

http://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/80485...FYXc4AodQ3QAcw

Good luck

jetboater

Rivnuts are excellent for many uses but I don't think they're strong enough for this application--- those seat bolts take a huge force in the event of an accident and need to be very strong

Pks2k

My driver left side bolt is like this too. It just spins freely and won’t go up at all. Did you ever fix this issue?

AM4R

Bumping this after a long time. Does anyone know if I can use a bolt from a hardware store (is it strong enough) or if 90142-S04-004 006 002 fits?