Hi everyone.

My 74 kombi has a problem with the captive nuts on the chassis for the rear bumper mount.
The nuts aren't captive. Actually, I put in 2 HT nuts and bolts to replace a couple of absentees.

This is quite an old problem. Whoever had it cut rectangles into the chassis to allow access to the floating nuts.

I thought I'd check with everyone that what I want to do isn't stupid.

I thought it may be a good idea to put a dot of weld on the nuts to weld them to the chassis while everything is still in place.
I can't see any problem with doing this. can anyone else?

I'm sick of spending hours manhandling the towbar and bumper trying to get everything together.

Is it a good idea?

Will the dot of weld be easy to break if you ever want to get the nuts off?

Given my welding skills, undoubtably it will be easy to break.

Why would I want to remove them though?

Someone had done the same thing on my ride....
guess what, the weld broke, and I'm back to your original problem.

I've got the hole, waiting for me to do something about it.... might just dodge up a metal plate and hope that i dont need to take the bumper off in a while....

its a bitch.

It is a pain. I've found out that the weight towbar and the bumper is a little hard to hold one handed while trying to get the bolt through, and get the nut back on top. Then there's getting something in there to tighten it.

Oh, I took a cruddy cameraphone pic. Sorry about the angle. And the blurry bit. There was a hair on the lens.

Same setup on both sides.

yes weld the nut,but leave the hole open incase it breaks,try and get one front one rear and it should hold well:thumb

So welding it is okay.

There is a front and rear. I know it wasn't a great shot. But yeah, the front (of teh van) bolthead is just visible in the bottom left, and the rear, top rightish.

I wasn't going to close up the hole anyway. too useful!

I wish I could get the camera in for a better shot.

I know the big chunk of iron is sitting crooked. It needs a shim or something