They are essentially a threaded rivet, so once you are done you have place you can put a bolt. Basically works exactly like a rivet works, drill a hole, put nutserts/rivnut onto tool, insert into hole, squeeze tool and the nutsert deforms and clamps the metal on the backside/blindside between the flange of the nutsert on the top side. Boom! You have a threaded hole.

They cheap aluminum nutserts/rivnuts are not structural but will handle some decent loads.
If you know somebody who does sheet fab for the restaruant industry, they often have a pneumatic tool that will set the HD steel nutserts/rivnuts that you can then tack-weld in place for a permanent solution.


If you need more info or a tutorial, there are a few on YouTube.
Also search "pemnut" or "pem-sert" or some spelling variation of those if the others don't return hits.

 

^^^^^ Thanks for that info.

 

i forgot about nutserts! used them a lot when doing engine bay tucks on my friends' hondas. very cool, cheap and effective!

 

The windshield side of my battery tray no longer had the capacity to do its half of holding the battery stationary. My cheap solution was a 36" Zip Tie with a 175# capacity. The middle of the tray cooperates quite nicely with a little channel underneath the center.

 

I still have not addressed this issue and probably wont until the weather warms up. i don't really want it to look too tacky either. Do you have a pic with the zip ties attached?

 

Did not take pics.
This is a single black heavy duty Zip Tie , width of a index fingernail & snugged down on a black battery.
Does not look bad.

 

I did this same exact thing when i removed my tray to clean it. did it leave ANY of the threaded bolts behind? mine left just enough of it to get a good bite on, so i got some of these "t nuts" from ace hardware and some washers. They screwed right on and hold it nice and tight with a pair of vice grips.

. That and lots of anti-seize compound on the threads... i think pretty much any battery related nuts/bolts should have liberal amounts of anti-sieze applied to it.

 

Mines broke clean with body underneath so those are not an option. Thanks though.

 

If the tray is still solidly attached to the vehicle, the gigantic Zip Tie works.