Solution for broken front grille clips

[VanGeek]

Have removed the front grills on a 2001 Eurovan weekender and noted several of the mounting clips are partially or fully broken. Grills have remained in-place OK but wanted to repair a few of them while I had the grills off for painting.

Several of these clips function by loosely fitting into a hole, and then expanding when a screw is inserted from the front of the grill to hold the grill and clip more tightly. Kinda like a drywall screw anchor. If the clips break, there's nothing to expand into the hole when you attempt to insert a screw.

A good solution is to make "clip implants" with a 3d printer. Just slightly bore-out the existing screw hole with a drill, print the implant, and epoxy it into position with jb-weld. I designed and printed an implant for the lower grille clips and it works great!

If anyone needs help with this, just use the clip I designed (I will upload to thingiverse and include a link here) or measure and share the clip dimensions for another mounting point and I'll design and upload it. Best to print the clips with something fairly durable like ABS, PETG, TPU, or ASA filament.

This is an unbroken clip from my passenger side lower grill

This is a the driver's side, with screw hole bored-out and clip implant epoxied into position.

This is the front of the grill showing the front of the implant epoxied into the new bore, ready for a screw to tighten it.

This is a screen-shot of the implant from my cad software

[IdeaNerd]

Looks like an effective, simple, straightforward solution. Thanks for sharing it!