Attaching metal pieces inside latch-epoxy strong enough?

Question

In the picture below , I need to reattach two metal pieces located in the tailgate latch assembly on 2014 Ford Escape . The two metal pieces are located on middle right hand side of picture. The pieces are subject to pressure every time door is open and will get some jarring from door shutting and normal outside heat. Will epoxy do the job?

Answer 1

"brown or dark colored spot" that could be a spot-weld... in which case epoxy won't do it as you may need electrical contact...

Better pictures of the detail may help, but if it is a spot-weld then most good body shops will have a spot welder & machine who can do that for you.

If you know what you are doing then you could make one, but I don't want to go there...

Answer 2

It's hard to say exactly from your picture as it's a bit out of focus for that area, so this will a bit more general than I prefer. Adhesives are not a substitute for material strength. If a piece of plastic/wood/breaks because of some sort of force that's routinely active on it then adhesives are rarely as strong as the material itself. If the material breaks because of a force that isn't routinely active on it then adhesives are often a good solution.

So if you're trying to fix a cover or fascia, or something that has a light load on it then adhesives are a good choice. If you're trying to fix your trunk lid mechanism and the adhesive failing could cause your trunk to open then replace the part.

Assuming glue is the way to go Make Magazine has an excellent chart on the subject of what adhesive to use depending on the materials involved: From this chart you can see that when gluing metal to metal your choices are 2K/C, in other words two component (i.e. epoxy) or Contact Adhesive. Now, by the brown coating you see it would seem to indicate that the parts were glued, and I'd say you should use whatever was used before. The challenge there is that both epoxy and contact adhesive dry brown!

If the glue rubs off with finger pressure then it's contact cement, if it doesn't come off at all or flakes off with a screwdriver it's probably epoxy, although old contact cement can sometimes become brittle. If it's contact cement then that's probably your best choice as that's what Ford did and they must have had a reason, if you can't determine then 5 minute epoxy is your friend here. Just make sure to clean the parts thoroughly no matter what glue you use.