Anyone up for ordering additional tie-down hooks?

[Snafu]

Good idea. One pic for exploded view and one of them installed.

[Snafu]

Okay pics...see them before FB changes the url.

Exploded view:



Semi-installed:



Installed:



The track in the X is not quite the same as the track normally used with unistruts but these things hold.

Now no more pics until you become a premium member :p

[the x kid]

Happy. Good stuff.

[Rhino]

I have finally acquired the parts to make additional tiedowns for my 2007 XTerra.

I acquired all the parts "off the shelf" at Spaenaur, a big fastener specialist. I went to their parts counter in Kitchener but I imagine they have additional locations and I know they have a website at http://spaenaur.ca.

The tiedowns I "designed" with the help of the woman at the counter consist of 4 parts each: an eyebolt, a hex nut, a big fender washer, and a "tab weld nut". I bought enough of each part to make 6 tiedowns, which should meet my foreseeable needs (and then some), and I was only out-of-pocket $14.28 for the whole kit and kaboodle. They "tab weld nut" is narrow enough to easily fit in the channels in the back of my 2007 XTerra but wide enough to stay within the channel once you install them in the channel. They aren't very hard to install either. (I started out by asking for the parts in Snafu's picture but they didn't have anything like the spring/bolt assembly in his tiedowns so the counter person started flipping pages in her catalogue until we saw the tab weld nut and thought it might do the job.)

Let me give you the part numbers and descriptions in case you want to acquire these items:
1. 024-029 Bent Eye Bolt, Full Thread (no nut) 3/8"-16 UNC x 4" O/A Lgth, 1" Eye ID Steel Zinc Plated - $1.25 each
2. B-93 Full Finished Hex Nut 3/8"-16 UNC (9/16" AF x 21/64" thick) Grade 5 Steel Zinc Plated ANSI B18.2.2-1982 - $0.09 each
3. 656-B66-1T Flat Fender Washer, Round Bolt Size 3/8" 25/64" ID x 1-1/2" OD x 0.83" Thk Steel Trivalent Zinc Plated - $0.43 each
4. 208-K01-1C Tab Weld Nut, Central thread 3/8"-16 UNC Low Carbon Steel Plain Finish - $0.34 each

You should be able to vary these parts just a bit; for example, you might prefer a longer or shorter eyebolt and a slightly smaller fender washer would make it slightly less fidgety to install the tiedown.

Here are some pictures showing the components of my tiedowns.


Assembling the tiedown is simple: start with the eyebolt, thread the hex nut onto the eyebolt, put the fender washer on next and then thread the weld tab nut last. You'll want to keep the weld tab nut fairly close to the open end of the eyebolt. The washer will stay near the weld tab nut and the hex nut will be used to snug the washer down against the channel once you'd positioned the weld nut tab inside the channel and turned it so that it is at right angles to the gap down the middle of the channel.

I haven't actually tried tying anything down with the new tiedowns but they feel very solid and secure and I feel sure they will be very satisfactory.

I hope this helps someone! Special thanks to Snafu for showing me his tiedowns so that I had an idea of where to start.

[Snafu]

Dang! Pic is not coming through

[Rhino]

I just tried posting the same link again but it didn't work so I edited the post to take that out again.

I see from the FAQ that some people can add attachments to their posts and some can't; apparently you can ask an administrator to give you that permission but I didn't see anything in the FAQ that mentioned how to find an administrator so that you can ask. If someone could clue me in on that, I'd be grateful

My pictures are in PhotoBucket and PhotoBucket says to imbed links to their pages in an <IMG> tag (I've used angle brackets instead of square brackets so that I wouldn't make a *real* IMG.)

Hmm, I just posted the same link again but this time used a URL tag and it works!
http://s1370.photobucket.com/user/Rhino ... 20Tiedowns

[Snafu]

Here is a Link to Album

I think you have to open each pic as 'open image in a new tab' then copy the url of the pic to paste in here with the IMG tag:

[Rhino]

Thanks for that explanation, Snafu, but now that the slideshow is working, I'll assume I've given enough information for others to duplicate my efforts. (I hope people will let me know if they need more information.)