How to screw into hollow aluminium frame?

[AGVega]

Hi All,

Recently bought a house (yay!) and am doing a whole heap of renos and fixes. One that is annoying me on a daily basis is the aluminium flyscreen door not attached properly. The metal screws have nothing to grip onto on the hollow metal frame. They slide in and out freely. Strangely enough, the bottom set are still attached. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks!

[JacobZ]

Hi @AGVega,

A warm welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community, it is wonderful to have you with us.

Congratulations on your house purchase. I am sure you are excited to get stuck into some D.I.Y. in your new home.

You have two options that would work without moving the hinge. You could either use a larger diameter metal screw or use pop rivets.

If you could measure the diameter of the holes in the aluminium door, I would be happy to recommend some replacement fixings that should work with your door. It needs to be a fairly precise measurement as screw and rivet diameters come in very precise sizes. The closest millimetre should suffice.

Let me know how you go.

Jacob

[AGVega]

Hi Jacob,

Thanks for the speedy response.

The solution seems so obvious! Didn't even think of using a bigger size screw since the bottom set is securely attached and I assumed would have been installed with the same size screw but doesn't seem to have any problems staying attached. Thought that maybe something else was going on. 

Will give it a go. Thanks!

[JacobZ]

Hi @AGVega,

Just make sure it's the screw's diameter that you're increasing, not the length. You just need the thread to grab the metal, so they don't need to be long.
 

I used to do a lot of work with aluminium and these Buildex Metal C3 Smooth Top Tek Screws 10g x 16mm are the type of screw we would use. Something like this will work as long as the thread diameter is larger.

Good luck and don't hesitate to reach out if you need more help.

Jacob

[Noyade]

Just another suggestion @AGVega 

Should screws continue to work loose - try a nut rivet.

Cheers.

[R4addZ]

Hi @AGVega 

What most people overlook with screwing into aluminium is that there is a thing called galvanic corrosion where dissimilar metals and moisture in the atmosphere (and /or Rain ) causes the two metals to corrode away. You need to use Stainless steel screws to minimise the effects of this to get a long term solution (they don't make aluminium screws)