Fun with Zip Ties (or I'm really not a redneck!)

Part of my commute is on a gravel road. While driving to work Friday, I hit a deeper than I thought pothole, and heard a weird scraping sound. I stopped once I hit pavement and looked underneath, and there was a long metal piece dragging on the ground from under the engine. Crap. Well this morning (Saturday) I got the car up on my ramps, it turns out the under-tray has a metal bar or something on the rear edge, that's supposed to hold the back up. The bar is just riveted to the plastic tray, and after 9 years/175K all but one rivet came out. Of course I didn't have any screws and nuts on hand, but I do have a big bag of zip ties! (That and I didn't want to drag 3 hyper kids into town to paw thru the nut aisle at the hardware store, I can do that when they're back in school). I've been really lazy and taking the car to the "quick oil change" place by work, while underneath I figured out that I was missing 75% of the fasteners holding up the plastics under the car. I got to work zipping everything up!



THe side pieces are supposed to have 2 bolts thru them holding the tray up, of course I was missing 3 of the 4...

I zipped everything I could together, it seems really sturdy now that all the corners are actually held on by something... I will get new actual bolts (and the captive nut thingys) and get it all put back together next oil change time. I don't know if the quick change guys were dropping nuts/bolts or just not putting them back on, but one or 2 more missing fasteners and I would have left my tray behind in an intersection, or something...

(thumb)

Here's my ziptie work I started last week

Good Ol zip ties and duct tape can, and do, fix everything! I removed the undertray from my 5 when i performed the first oil change after I bought it used, as mine was barely attached like yours. In the two years since I have never missed it....

Nice. Nothing wrong with Zip Ties for a quick fix.