Let me tell you about the most pain in the ass job to do. I decided to hot rivet the rear frame rail to the cross members rather than simply bolting them in. Some of you might have had great success, so please share your experience with details. Here is mine....
1. finding and using the right backing buck was a huge pain. I used a combonation of the threaded jack style, old dolly that I carbided a divit in, 1.5" pipe filled with weld and then welded on a small section of 1" square tubing. On flat surfaces, each of them worked fine. However, the sections that were a tight fit and had other riviets on the opposite side were the bigget head ache. I could not get enough clamping force on the buck to hold down the backing buck. The vibration from the air hammer cause the buck to come off and ruin several rivets. I would then have to grind off the rivet and start all over
2. Air hammer was another issue. All I had was my long barrel air hammer which was way too powerfull and always knocked the backing buck off. I ordered a short throw barrel on Amazon
3. Hot rivet bit. My first attempt was to make a bit to go into the air hammer by taking a 1" carbide bit to a standard pneumatic hammer. This worked well, but didnt get the desired "factory" shape after numerous modifications. I then decided to buy one online. This one gave me the desired dome shape, but dammaged the frame from the edges. I then took it to the lathe to machine a few thousands off and softened the edge. This worked well, but the bit would occasionally bounce off and ruin the finish. At this time I was completely over it.
After several attempts I finally gave up and decided to simply bolt the rivet and try to dome the hex head with heating it up and using the air hammer. I will touch it up with a bit of shaping with the air grinder.
Again, if you have detailed instructions to share on this process, please share.
1. finding and using the right backing buck was a huge pain. I used a combonation of the threaded jack style, old dolly that I carbided a divit in, 1.5" pipe filled with weld and then welded on a small section of 1" square tubing. On flat surfaces, each of them worked fine. However, the sections that were a tight fit and had other riviets on the opposite side were the bigget head ache. I could not get enough clamping force on the buck to hold down the backing buck. The vibration from the air hammer cause the buck to come off and ruin several rivets. I would then have to grind off the rivet and start all over
2. Air hammer was another issue. All I had was my long barrel air hammer which was way too powerfull and always knocked the backing buck off. I ordered a short throw barrel on Amazon
3. Hot rivet bit. My first attempt was to make a bit to go into the air hammer by taking a 1" carbide bit to a standard pneumatic hammer. This worked well, but didnt get the desired "factory" shape after numerous modifications. I then decided to buy one online. This one gave me the desired dome shape, but dammaged the frame from the edges. I then took it to the lathe to machine a few thousands off and softened the edge. This worked well, but the bit would occasionally bounce off and ruin the finish. At this time I was completely over it.
After several attempts I finally gave up and decided to simply bolt the rivet and try to dome the hex head with heating it up and using the air hammer. I will touch it up with a bit of shaping with the air grinder.
Again, if you have detailed instructions to share on this process, please share.
