Stupid Question About Door Check Straps

[bigdaddylee82]

I drove the car for a week or so with the new door check, and even louder door "pop" when opening & closing, the look on a few coworkers faces that rode with me was pretty priceless, "you break your door off?"

After further research I decided to attempt the "drill out spot welds, and bolt in place" repair. I picked up some 6 mm bolts & nylock nuts. This "repair" is a bit of a challenge, the door has to come off, easy enough, drilling out the spot welds isn't that big of a deal, but getting a nut on the inside of the A pillar through that little plug is darn near impossible without being a contortionist. I read every version of the repair I could find on all of the Volvo forums and attempted all posted tips/tricks and a few of my own.

Door off:

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My first attempt at drilling out what was left of the original weld, was frustrating, the mount kept moving, so I had to figure out a way to hold it in place while drilling. A ratchet strap came in handy for that.

Holding Mount in Place.jpg (155.39 KiB) Viewed 2468 times

Drilling out the welds was simple, I "eyeballed" the center, and used a spring loaded center punch to keep my drill from walking. I started with something small, 3/32" for a pilot hole, and then rummaged through my bits, until I found something ever-so-slightly larger than the bolts I was using.

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When I finished drilling, I shot some rattle can implement paint that was close to the same color of the car to cover any bare metal.

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I used some 6mm bolts, nylock nuts, and locktite, I never wanted these to come loose.

Bot Nut Locktite.jpg (47.06 KiB) Viewed 2468 times

Putting a bolt in a hole is no big deal, but getting the nut on the inside of the A-pillar is one of the most frustrating things I've done on this car, and I've done the rear delta link bushings, and swapped an engine on it since I've had it.

I was able to get the nuts "started" by bending a 10mm combo wrench in my vice, and obviously hot glued the nut in place. You'll also noticed fishing line tied on the wrench so I could fish it out of the inside of the A-pillar in case I dropped it, which I had to use more times than I'd care to admit.

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I eventually bent the wrench even more than the picture shows, but to no avail, due to the angle the little access hole in the A-pillar is located it was impossible to actually get the nuts tightened onto the bolts. Next solution was to cut the box-end off of the bent combo wrench and create the "finger wrench." I can't take credit for this, it was suggested in one of the other threads I read about this repair. I was able to successfully tighten everything by contorting my finger with wrench into the opening, and had to "feel" the wrench onto the nut. It worked but dang near broke my finger in the process, I highly recommend against any power tools for this part, I had originally got my cordless impact out for the repair, but thought better of it when the finger wrench came into play.

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After much trial and tribulation, finally "fixed" right?

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I was pretty happy with myself, I put the door back on, reattached the check strap to the A-pillar mount and shut it. No, "pop," Awesome! I open the door and there was one very loud "pop," subsequently followed to the same old "pop" it had been making for over a month now. I saw red, I was so pissed. I wasted all that time, and accomplished nothing. I decided I was probably going to have to weld my A-pillar, but wasn't exactly sure what part was actually broken, I mean I just "fixed" what everyone claims to be the problem...

Another week or so passed, before I worked up the nerve to attempt the fix again. I don't have a welder at home, but the techs at work do, and I convinced the shop foreman to let me stay after work and use it one Saturday.

I forgot to take my camera to work, so all I had was the camera on my phone, so the next pictures aren't that good. Additionally I was on a bit of a time crunch so I didn't take many.

First thing I noticed when removing the door again was the bottom bolt "missing," my assumption is that the first loud "pop" I heard after the first "fix" was the head of the bolt popping off. That would explain why my original "fix" didn't take.

Broken Bolt.jpg (42.93 KiB) Viewed 2468 times

Now I'm not a "welder" by any stretch of the imagination, I know what I'm doing, but actually "doing" it isn't exactly the same. I had a metals class many eons ago in High School, even took a metals & welding class in college for fun. I've worked with some extremely talented welders back when I was doing CAD/engineered drawings for a fab shop, I learned a lot from them, and I've stuck my fair share of metal together growing up on a farm, but a pro welder, I am not. Proof that knowledge & execution are two totally different things.

The definition of what most in the trade would call, booger or bird sh!t welds.

Booger Welds.jpg (51.23 KiB) Viewed 2468 times

I had a coat of paint on it before I remembered to take a picture, so I just went ahead and painted the whole thing before taking a picture. If I had it to do over again I'd probably remove the one bolt, and weld the whole thing, but at the time I didn't have an easy way to cut the bolt off without potentially damaging the more of the car, really needed a little cutoff tool, only had 4-1/2 grinder with me, and as stated before limited time after work.

I'm over a week since welding the A-pillar, and the door is still good as new.

I have come to the conclusion after all of the BS I went through "repairing" this thing, the only REAL fix is welding. I suppose if I had possibly used grade 8.8 or 10.9 instead of grade 4.8 bolts, I may have "fixed" it the first time, but if I had just welded it to begin with I would have saved myself a couple hours of head scratching, busted knuckles, a bent/cut-in-half wrench, and a whole lot of grief.

So there you go, if you need to do this repair, don't waste your time, just weld it, or find someone who can weld it for you.

- Lee

[Ben850]

I had to come back to this thread after getting a good laugh today.
I picked up e few things for the wagon from the pick and pull yesterday, one of which was an OE door strap. The drivers door needed one on the wagon and I wanted a factory installed piece.
I already know that even the OE replacements are not as good. If you get a passengers piece, it will have minimal wear compared to the drivers. So there is much life left in them and they are interchangeable in the front doors.

I can definitively say they are interchangeable by flipping them over in the front door. first of all that is the only way the bolt holes will line up.
Secondly, what made me laugh, was while installing the picked piece I noticed stampings on the arm.

It reminded me of this thread so I had to take photos. Front straps (they still call them straps) are interchangeable from side to side.

Stamped FL front left when in this position

Flip it over and it is stamped FR. End of discussion.

Here is a shot of the already broken, clearly aftermarket part with pieces I had to dig out of the door.
Even the "OE" replacements are of the cheap gold galvanized crap metal.

[CNGBifuel]

All I can say is... love it. Made me smile, and damned useful to know, thank you sir. Off down the breakers tomorrow to get oen for my 1999 V70. My pillar is not cracked, or so it seemed. Bought a pattern part and it worked fine for 3-4 days, now the pop is back, but louder. I've not looked yet, maybe I now have cracking, I'm off to get a breakers part tomorrow, I'll start with right part. It occusr to me that even on a V70 I can swap the check-strap over [passenger to driver] to at least eliminate the issue of using a pattern part. On another forum there is a guy using an 850 [left] (passenger here in the UK) on his [right] driver V70 1999 door.

[MoVolvos]

All I can say is... love it. Made me smile, and damned useful to know, thank you sir. Off down the breakers tomorrow to get oen for my 1999 V70. My pillar is not cracked, or so it seemed. Bought a pattern part and it worked fine for 3-4 days, now the pop is back, but louder. I've not looked yet, maybe I now have cracking, I'm off to get a breakers part tomorrow, I'll start with right part. It occusr to me that even on a V70 I can swap the check-strap over [passenger to driver] to at least eliminate the issue of using a pattern part. On another forum there is a guy using an 850 [left] (passenger here in the UK) on his [right] driver V70 1999 door.

**

If the part is not damaged and there is a pop it is usually a crack in the frame. I drilled and used screws but that was not sufficient so I borrowed my cousins wire feed welder. My first time with a wire feed and the finished work looked like tumors to say the least but it worked.

Blessings,

BKM

**

[CNGBifuel]

False alarm with mine, turns out the torx [holding the bar to the A pillar] was a smidgen off from tight, and it got loose in the few dasy since I did the job, and that is waht started the popping again. Looks like I dodged a bullet, my foul-up in being frightened to over-torque it. But it goes to show, how tight the tolerances are with the design of this thing.

Note to all: My 1999 door card was falling to bits, the glue had gone to powder, so there was more work in using impact-adhesive and shed loads of G-clamps to fix the door card up again, took more time than the door check.

Anyway I'm out of the woods with one of the common 850/V70 issues. There are a few that are more serious than this one. For those of you that don't know....

Do your PCV and flush your tranny for example, pelnty of info on the PCV & 3309 Gibbons flush, they are killers of these cars, do these and you're good for real high-milers

[MoVolvos]

Looks like I dodged a bullet,

1+ It is easier and quicker to repair a crack the second time but if done right you don't get the easy second time. Oh well. Glad you didn't have to get into it and it was just the Torx.

Blessings,

BKM

**

[CNGBifuel]

For the benefit of those not seeing what is going on here. Small amounts of wear in the check mean it runs out of tolerance and leverage forces get put where they should not be going. They end up forcing the A pillar - heard as a 'pop'. I caught mine but if you don't, out will come the 6mm bolts or if left to get very bad the welder. Lubricate it now!

[SpeedyPete]

Most if not all of these faults can be avoided by greasing these door stops every time you change your oil. Do not forget all of the other hinges on the car!

[matthew1]

I'm adding a bit of info on this from a member who emailed it to me:

re: Failed 1994 850 door strap attachment:
I repositioned (it had not broken off) and bonded the C-shaped attachment point to the door pillar, using 3 sheet metal inserts ( thickness 1/32" ) to contain and form a 1/8' protrusion of J.B. Weld around the area.
This fix prevents paint and wiring damage.
Regards,
Alex

[cmblackburn]

Lee, ever heard of Re-Volv? I get most of the parts I need from them, fantastic prices, shipping prices and customer service. Next time you need parts, hit up Ben McNally or Nick Bernstein and tell them Collin Blackburn sent you.
JRL, no need to be so sour. It's the 21st century, and theres this thing called instant messaging. I'd much rather deal with poorly google-translated English and slow response time than I would some outsourced support guy who you can't understand.