Suggestions how to fix brackets for gas shock on rear vdrive lockers

[Bagar55]

2006 21v. Both sides of the boat rear vdrive lockers. I'm sure a very similar setup to most. There is a gas shock that holds the locker open. The shock is mounted using the standard bracket with ball end. Clips into the shock. One mount is screwed into the fiberglass on the bottom the other mounted on the bottom of the locker cover/door. On both sides the bracket that is mounted to the bottom of the cover/door is rusted fairly bad. I purchased new brackets for both ends of the shock. Expensive little suckers by the way. Removed the bracket from the fiberglass and installed new one no problem. Tried to remove the bracket from the bottom of the locker cover and on both sides ran into trouble. On one side I was able to remove two of the three screws on the other only one. The screws are just spinning in the hole. One is really close to coming out the other two just spin. It seems like what the screw bites into broke free up inside the cushion from rust and now will not allow the screw to be removed. I messed with both sides all day trying everything I could think of to try and hold whatever mount is inside the cushion and get the screw out. No luck at all. I'm not really sure what is inside the cushion and how to proceed. I'm thinking possibly trying to get some super glue or something similar way down inside the cushion to try and hold what the screw bites into but without being able to see exactly what's going on I'm not sure that will help at all.
Any suggestions. Has anybody else had a similar situation? Does anyone know whats inside the cushion for the screws to thread into? I really don't want to have to remove the covers and then remove the upholstery but I'm thinking it might be the only option at this point.

[99bison]

Cut the screw head off with a dremel.... Then just mount the new bracket with 2 screws.

[CJD]

I don't know what was used as a backing, if anything...but it sounds like there were simple nuts on the top side, under the upholstry. Are they machine screws vrs. sheet metal? If so that confirms that there are nuts and/or a nut plate up there. If that's the case, you have a couple options:

First, you could just cut the old screws and then use larger self tapping screws. This will definitely work short term...but may loosen over time, since the bracket is pretty heavily loaded.

Option 2 is to pry the upholstry up and then reach inside to work with the blind nuts. The upholstry is held with simple staples. By looking closely you will see how simple it really is. Just pry the old staples with a screw driver for a strip about 6-12 inches. Stretch the upholstry back out of the way and re-fit your nuts and bolts, and then re-staple the upholstry edge back down. It is not difficult at all, but you will need a decent staple gun. There is usually a trim strip that hides the staples, but you will see them when you look closely.

If you do lift the upholstry to fix it, you may want to think about making it easier if you ever have to do it again. You can drill the holes to take blind nuts...and glue them in place permanently. Then if you ever have to remove the bracket the nuts will stay in place.

[kevkev]

They have a clip similar to the one in the picture that has tabs that get pressed into the backing. They will sometimes come loose when trying to remove the screws. You should be able to pull the staples that hold the backing on to get to them and then just put new staples in when you replace the clips.13783

[Bagar55]

Thanks as always for the help. I was guessing I would have to pull back the upholstery to fix it correctly. This always seems to happen. Simple repair turns into much more work. The brackets were rusted pretty bad and didn't look very appealing but they would have worked for another couple seasons. Should have left them alone.
Boat = simple fix maybe 2 out of 10 times.

[CJD]

Yep, if they are blind nuts like Keykey shows, they will spin if the screw is heavily rusted. Your repair options are the same, the best being removing a bit of the upholstery to replace the nuts. If you replace with similar blind nuts...using epoxy to reinstall them may help prevent spinning in the future. Glump 5 minute epoxy over the top and past the edge of each nut, being careful not to get it in or near the threads.