Keep losing battery cover fasteners.

[GT Pony]

Don’t you need a special tool to install those nuts? Don’t they expand like a rivet?

Just hammer them in the holes. They have splines/ridges on them that bite into the hole edges. Looks like the photo also shows the installation tool to hammer them into the holes.

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[johnscousin]

Just hammer them in the holes. They have splines/ridges on them that bite into the hole edges. Looks like the photo also shows the installation tool to hammer them into the holes.

Where did you get the wingnut solution?
Thanks-jc

 

[Lightning Struck]

Don’t you need a special tool to install those nuts? Don’t they expand like a rivet?

That's what the bolt with the flange nut is for. Thread the insert onto the bolt, hold the nut in place and back off the bolt. Effectively compressing the Rivnut like the proper tool would.

 

[qtrracer]

I just leave them off. They are not needed to keep the cover in place.

Agreed. Lost my last fastener nearly two years ago. Not having them makes it a lot faster to lift the lid for tech at events.

 

[Lorne34]

problem with the plastic fasteners is the thread forks split and break off... if you don't compress them as you insert they hit the edges. Lost one this winter taking my battery tender on and off as my son needed to borrow it...

 

[racingandfishing]

I believe these are the ones I use. Lowe's in the drawers in specialty hardware and in the automotive drawers.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Hillman-1-4-in-Nylon-Push-Rivets/3012821

Can't tell from the Lowes photo, but the heads are phillip's style screw in and more like this picture.

 

[frankeric16]

Left mine off after installing hood struts, 5 months cover never moved!

 

[frank s]

There must be another thread about these wayward little fasteners, but I haven't found it. Any road I'll revivify this one and it'll come to the top. I distinctly remember someone posting that what these need is a slim washer, since the base in contact with the battery cover doesn't cover the hole, and they tend to slip into the holes. I agreed. You want your fasteners to have firm contact with the surfaces you're trying to connect. After a few losses of the skittering plastic items, I practiced and got it down to where I was only losing one pushpin per mount, dismount, mount of the cover.

That accomplishhment was enough to spur my interest in the base-to-hole size problem. I have a number of those cabinets, some of them inherited already full, with little drawers to hold extra screws nuts, cotter pins and so forth. During a systematic review of the contents of one cabinet I came across a drawer of flat washers, among which were three sort-of-slim plastic washers that looked as if they might fill the bill. Sure enough, they did the hole-size-reducing job, so the base of the fasteners no longer could find their way through the cover's holes.

Of course during the try-outs and mountings, I managed to lose one more pushpin—and one of the washers. OH NO! Yes I did. Now I had one too few washers. Rats! Looking more closely at the washers that remained, I saw they bore a part number. Google told me it was a VW part number for something to do with seatbelt mounting. And that a used VW parts store in SoCal would sell them to me for two bucks apiece. They came in the mail today. Definitely used, with surface blemishes from some kind of friction during that use. A couple were a bit dirty. I cleaned them with Windex, and preserved/lubricated them with ArmorAll. Looking good.

I'm doing a routine installation when—you guessed it—one pin escaped into the Bermuda Triangle of the engine compartment. No biggie; I had bought quite a few for just such happenstances. Two out of three in place and snug, now one of the washers, slippery from its ArmorAll bath escapes my trembly old fingers, similarly lubricated, and falls. Down. There. I could see it on what seems like a frame rail. No way to reach it without some kind of mechanical extension, Which was successful in dislodging the washer and allowing it to pass into oblivion. But I was ready with an extra washer, and now have the darned thing fastenered and washered the way I had daydreamed it.


Couple more notes:

Photos show the final assembly before final adjustment to center the pins in the washers.

I'll have to take the cover off before leaving the car for service; unwarned technicians are even more likely to let the fasteners and washers escape.

I'm wondering if my ArmorAll treatment has rendered the gluing of a washer to a pushpin impossible?

VW parts place also offers the washers in white; would they look too terrible under a black pushpin and on a black cover? Would certainly increase the chances of service personnel noticing their presence.

 

[frankeric16]

Wow, too much brain damage....
I lost a couple 2xs & gave up!
I left them off since the cover never moved in 1,500 miles, problem solved.

 

[MustangGuy]

Similar idea. Was tired of the cheesy pushpins. All parts found at Ace Hardware.

 

[qtrracer]

Been more that two years since mine disappeared. Cover doesn't move. I suppose if one needs to have the holes filled with something all of the above solutions satisfy the need. But the fasteners are not required to hold the cover in place.

 

[plc268]

Yea, I also just leave the fasteners off. I didn't lose them, but they're just flimsy and eventually break if you have to access the battery frequently.

I too thought about a fancy solution to replace the fasteners, but it's just a waste of money and the cover never moves.

 

[Monopoly]

Same I just left them off. Screw it, after several mentioned it wont move then who cares!

 

[frank s]

Same I just left them off. Screw it, after several mentioned it wont move then who cares!

"The satisfactions of manifesting oneself concretely in the world through manual competence have been known to make a man quiet and easy. They seem to relieve him of the felt need to offer chattering _interpretations_ of himself to vindicate his worth. He can simply point: the building stands, the car now runs, the lights are on. Boasting is what a boy does, because he has no real effect in the world ... "

-- Matthew B. Crawford, _SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT: an inquiry into the value of work_

...the battery cover is secured in place, with improved elegance.

 

[Costcocombo]

i made a rookie mistake of removing the battery cover causing one fastener to fall through the opening between the battery and fender......Will anything happen to the car if it gets stuck there forever?

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