Any bright ideas how to mount this?

[wfdTamar]

I need some ideas how to mount a bar in my engine bay.

The plastic engine sump guard on my car is knackered so I found a steel one off an early Scout at a wrecker. It has a bar/cross member across the front that bolts onto the 'chassis rails' up under the engine bay. There are some points in the correct place that have a hole the shape of a bolt head - as if in the factory they might weld a bolt in there ready to accept the bar I'm trying to mount.

Also showing in the pics are some threaded studs that aren't for this (not sure what they're for). The place I need to mount a bolt are in the green circles.

Actually if anyone has a Scout with this steel tray - how does the rear of it attach to the car? Does it bolt direct to the alloy sub frame, or is there a bracket attached to the sub frame that it then bolts to? The holes in the tray are in a different place to my trays holes.

Ways I've thought of:
1. Weld a bolt in the holes the way the factory would. (very tight space and could get messy).

2. Slip a bolt in the big hole near the hex holes (so get it inside the chassis rail), get it to drop down the hex hole and do a nut up on it first (before putting the crossmember on). Problem is I can't hold the head of the bolt so doing it up tight might be impossible.

The really tedious way might be to take off the front bumper and front cross member which I think bolts to the front of the chassis rails. This would give spanner access to the tops of a bolt put down through the hex hole - if the front of the chassis rail is not enclosed.

[Umai Naa!!]

Nutserts?

At the rear, it bolts directly to the subframe. There should be three threaded holes across the front of the subframe.

[wfdTamar]

Ta. Didn't know about Nutserts. Could work except the hole's are hexagonal. Not sure if I could even get a drill in there to drill it round. Perfect solution though if I can do it.

Are you assuming it bolts to the sub frame (like other Skoda's), or do you have knowledge of the steel tray 2008 Scouts? My 2008 plastic one bolts to the sub frame, but it's longer and the holes are in a different spot.

The steel one doesn't reach my sub frame and it only has two holes. You can see them in the pic about 100mm in from the much bigger holes. So either the Scout sub frame is different to mine (I would have thought unlikely), or there's another bracket between sub frame and tray.

[wfdTamar]

Ohhhh. You can get Nutserts (also called Rivetnuts) with hex bodies, so those holes are actually meant for them. Ebay here I come.

Here's a bloke doing it the painful (and unsuccessful way) and the right way:

YouTube

[wfdTamar]

Yes there is a bracket that bolts to the sub frame to hold the rear of the tray. The wrecker left it out as they had dropped the tray some time earlier to remove the engine and must not have even looked as it is pretty obvious that it is required. They did send me pics of the tray and front bracket and I thought that was all there was to it and accepted the price of $225 (Syd to Tas), but turns out they under estimated the freight cost so now they want $40 for the rear bracket.

I've suggested $20 and I think that's being generous. (ok, got it for $25)