Do I need to weather seal nutserts? (mounting stuff to Ambulance exterior)

Alloy

Well-known member
I don't think anyone was talking about aluminum inserts or body material, the vast majority of riv-nuts used in automotive applications are plated steel going into sheet steel, and as I said above for installing inserts like that I would use body seam sealer to wet install those... for the third time, my recommendation for ultra gray was for bolt threads..
My Apologies.
 

Bikersmurf

Expedition Leader
On an aluminum bodied ambulance I’d lean towards aluminum nut-certz... I’ve bought & used them before. I’d keep in mind what I’m mounting and ensure that they’d be at least 3 times as strong as what would be required... standard Ambulance overkill ;)

In general the joint created riv-nuts/nut-certz get tighter and stronger the more tension is on the bolt... until the point of failure. For anything structural in nature, I’d drill and tap into the 1/8” sheet aluminum over the 1/4” thick x 2” square tube structure that surrounds/is the ambulance box. The box is incredibly strong.... just watch one barrel roll yet have fully operational doors. :D
 
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Len.Barron

Observer
Right, Plusnuts are definitely more secure. You just have to accept the giant lump surrounding the threaded hole. Rivnuts set deeper so are nearly flush.
I haven't bought any Plusnuts/T-Nuts yet but they look like they'd be well suited to many van/camper applications. I'd guess (given the "prebulbed" ) design you'd have a larger install hole vs same size rivnut and like you mentioned if you have interference on the back side the larger foot print could be an issue. I think I'm going to buy a pack of them and see what I think, I'm thinking they would be much better for installations in softer material like fiberglass, the larger grip footprint on the backside would be a big advantage for that (not that you shouldn't try and get a metal back plate in those installations if possible...but it's not always possible).
It's probably one of those things where having some of both is a good idea.
 

iggi

Ian
Installed my solar panels using the nutserts over the weekend. Globbed a big pile of urethane into the hole before installing the nutcert.
Feels super solid. Side note, it's good to have mounts with a little bit of flex in them. I was teeny bit off center on drilling some of the holes but the z mounts flex enough that it wasn't an issue.

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