How thick is the floor pan?
Not sure. That's what would keep me from just running a tap through it. I don't think the gripsert would work, it would need to keep from tearing the sheet metal in a crash.
This is on your rusty but trusty truck?
Yeah, check out the seat. Pretty sweet, right? It's heated but someone swiped the switch. The wiring was different, and to get the heat to work I'd need to run a switched power source. It's taking every ounce of me to not do that. I did spend way too much time getting the power lumbar to work correctly. Also had to do some mods since this was a passenger seat. Just drove down in it. It is SOOO much better than the old seat. Also replaced the headlight switch (it was needlenose pliers activated before) and the cruise control switches. Believe it or not, the only thing not functioning ATM is HVAC (heat has only worked on max since I got it, A/C went out last year). We'll see how much motivation I have to fix them.
there should be a weld nut attached to the sheet metal. I would probably put in a few self-tapping sheet metal screws, or get the carpeting a bit wet and weld the bracket to the remainder of the broken bolt / ez-out
There may be something on the back side, I can't tell. Once it gets dry enough for me to crawl under I'll see what the rear 2 bolts look like. Future me would absolutely hate today me if I welded that seat in there. Today me would also hate today me if I decided to try and weld around carpet on the front side and fuel tank/lines on the back side.
I still like the idea of going through the top of the rail. I can either drill a pilot hole to see how thick the metal is or cut out a bit of the heat shield at the bottom.
Other idea i had would be to cut out a 1/2" hole or bigger encompassing the ez out, and then cut a rectangular piece of plate/stock with a threaded hole in the middle and put it on the backside of the hole if that makes sense. Kind of like the trick you'd use to patch in some drywall.
