Door brake a-pillar failure...new type of fix?

[02Coastie]

The bracket on my driver's side A pillar that the door brake attaches to has come loose. The "ears" are in good shape, but apparently the spot welds have broken inside the pillar. Now all the repair advice indicate cutting a hole in the kick panel and either welding or bolting like this one: http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,57/page,viewtopic/t,320652/highlight,door+brake/

I have neither A) a welder, nor a strong desire to cut up my car's rust free body. Has anyone ever considered drilling a hole from the outside through the center of the ears, and then tapping the pillar and bracket, and using a low profile nut to draw it together? The other might be to use some super heavy duty rivets.

Thoughts?

[Richard]

The repair you mention could be near perfect if you use a plasma cutter rather than a sawsall. Practice first on scrap steel. The panel to remove might take a minute.

[tlapham]

A rivet sounds like a good idea to me if you don't want to weld. Just make sure they are SS, and that you get the bracket to pull tight to the door pillar, so it doesn't snap back and forth when you open/close the door.

by the way- i have a little MIG welder if you want to borrow it...

[austinmf]

what was the outcome of this? Did a rivet hold it? I was also thinking to drill and tap a hole. Seems like the clearance is going to be very tight.

[M3M3]

the bolt version...

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,57/page,viewtopic/t,335248/

my guess is that it would be tough to drill into the loose piece inside the piller. hard metal and no way to lean on it. plus, for those trying to avoid rust, drilling will leave a bunch of metal shavings down in your a-pillar to rust.

but...did anyone try?

[bnam]

Why not just weld the bracket onto the outside of the A pillar?

[02Coastie]

what was the outcome of this? Did a rivet hold it? I was also thinking to drill and tap a hole. Seems like the clearance is going to be very tight.

Short answer, it works great! It was super easy to do and 4 months later no indications of any potential failure. See here for the full procedure:

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,50/page,viewtopic/start,0/t,366939/topic_view,threads/sid,a5155474c78abdeb7c0d45b65b84b047/

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[austinmf]

BINGO!!!! That is the answer! Thank you for that and the support

I could not do it without all of you contributing and expanding the database!

[davidmcw]

I too didn't want to cut sheet metal and weld.

Thanks for coming up with this option.