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Old 04-01-2012, 09:38 PM   #18 (permalink)
Rick Rae
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Surry, VA
Posts: 47

The CARDIS - '07 Nissan Versa S HB
Team Nissan
90 day: 30.9 mpg (US)
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Apologies for the long delay, awilli. It's been an insanely busy month for me and I'm only now starting to get caught up on things.

The attaching was done in two parts. First I made a "T" from a 1x4 and drilled clearance holes lining up with two of the threaded bolt holes where the seat brackets were mounted. I then drilled out larger recesses so the bolt heads would be flush with the top of the board when it was mounted. The "T" was eventually fixed in place using two of the original bolts. You can see this in the two photos that show the underlayment.

I also drilled two smaller holes and hammered in T-nuts from the back side; in the same photos, you can just barely make those out near the ends of the T's crossbar.

I did a similar thing for the actual platform: Four clearance holes for bolts, with larger recesses added so the bolt heads would be below the surface. I sized those recesses to take press-in plastic hole plugs.

The rear edge of the platform bolted to the T-nuts I put in the 1x4 "T". The front edge uses a pair of toggle bolts that were sized to snap through the oval holes in the front seat rail -- you can see those holes in the same underlayment photos. If you look at the first shot of the covered platform, you can see the four snap-in hole plugs, which shows where the holes are positioned in the final product.

Note that you could easily glue or nail the "T" (or even just the one cross piece) to the bottom of the platform and use a single pair of bolt holes to fasten the back edge. I only did it the way I did because I wanted the hole plugs to be close to the sides of the cargo area where they'd be out of the way and less obvious.

If you have to remove the platform, don't try to feed the toggle bolts back through the holes. It can probably be done but it'd be awkward and unnecessary. Just back all four bolts out completely, then after you remove the load floor the toggle nuts will be waiting for you under the kick rail.

Let me know if that's not clear enough. Good luck and have fun!

Cheers,
Rick
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