Dopers, I’m nearly at my wit’s end. The hinge on my laptop (Asus U30JC-A1) stiffened, broke free from the back cover, and cracked the bezel. I already ordered and received a replacement bezel, so that’s taken care of, but the issue is reattaching the hinge to the back cover.
Long story short, each hinge attaches through three screws which screw into the cover. The are attached to the cover by a kind of half-threaded insert (or maybe it’s considered a nut?) which seems to have been molded in to the cover while it was made. Obviously, that’s not an option, but I was hoping JB Welding the inserts into the holes they formerly occupied would be a good enough substitute for a couple years.
Unfortunately, two of the inserts are missing, I only have the third one. It looks like this: side view http://i.imgur.com/HKbJhoc.jpg top view http://i.imgur.com/NQXr5kH.jpg (sorry for the blurriness in the second one, camera autofocus wasn’t behaving). I have no idea if there is a standard name for this type of insert. I thought maybe it was a unique Asus part, but evidently at least the HP dv9000, which had a similar hinge problem, has the same type of part (see lower left picture here http://www.instructables.com/id/Indestructible-repair-for-the-broken-HP-DV-9000-la/step7/null/). While you can find individual parts for the HP laptop, including screws, I haven’t been able to find those inserts or a kit that contains them. So it’s gotta be out there somewhere. Any ideas where I could find two of these inserts? Suggestions of companies to check out, part names, web sites, etc., would be most appreciated. Also, I’d definitely like any ideas about what I could substitute. I could just use a standard nut of the right size, but I imagine that threading provides a lot of surface area for the molded plastic or the JB weld I’m gonna use, so something similar available in small sizes (outer diameter ~ 2mm) would be great too. Thanks!
