Body/floor/interior rivets and rivnuts

[voucht]

Hi,
I'm going to get my chassis back from the sandblasting/powder coating at the end of the week.

I will soon put the floor, interior panels, and I am also going to receive my body kit from Equinox some day this week.

My floor will be made out of 3mm thick aluminium, inside panels out of 1.2mm thick aluminium. Thickness of my tube walls is 2mm.

I was wondering what kind of rivets do I need to buy : diameter? length? Are aluminium rivets OK? The books says 3mm rivets for the inside panels and body elements, at 50mm spacing. Do you think this is OK? And will this rivets spacing and diameter be OK for fitting my aluminium floor too (3mm rivets sounds a bit small to me)?

also, where did you use Rivnuts to be able to remove the panel?

If you guys would like to share your experiences about that, and give me good advices, I would be glad

Thanks a lot.

[flyerncle]

What ever you decide and 3mm 1/8 are ok,still use Sikaflex/PU to glue it to the chassis.
I did this and used plenty of rivets and the car is raced and no problems,consider placing you seats on a strip of steel across floor and fixed to outer and trans tunnel rails for piece of mind and you wont find your undercarriage dragging along the road.

[SeriesLandy]

I used 3.2mm sealed rivets for the floor and a hell of a lot of them.
I also riveted the transmission tunnel sides and the top above the gearbox.
I used 5mm rivnuts for the transmission tunnel top.
I used 6mm rivnuts for the side panels, scuttle, nosecone rear tub and arches.

My only annoyance with the sealed rivets (the ones I bought) is that they left a 4mm long spike sticking up as the break point wasnt at the top of the rivet.

You don't realise how many times you take the bodywork off.
I tired to leave the riveted panels to last but I still had to take one off again as I had an oil leak on the propshaft seal.

HTH

[mgglep]

I used 3 mm Ali floor I used sikaflex 3/16 or 4.8mm rivets at 50mm pitch which where sealed and steel rivets for strength remember if you do you steel rivets on Ali you will need to put a blob of sealer or paint or something as the steel and Ali will react together. I did use countersunk rivets where the side panels fit and I am glad I did as the side panels where tight

[twinturbo]

My floor, Trans sides and seat back are rivited. All other panels are designed to be removeable.

Floor was rivets and FSS ( F.....g Sticky Stuff )

TT

[twinturbo]

[Numplumb]

Has anyone used self tappings screws instead of rivets?.
Is there any reason why self tappers can't be used?.
I was thinking of using them cheaper than rivnuts and could be removed afterwards if required.
Regards Mick.

[alga]

I would worry about them rattling loose, especially for the floor. There is no reason to remove the floor, so they provide no benefit there. You can use them for interior panels, but rivnuts seem like a sounder choice to me. Although they are pretty expensive and time-consuming to install.

[voucht]

Hi,
Thanks to all of you for the replies and very useful informations. I now have a very nice smooth black powder coated chassis, and also received the body kit from Equinox. As it has been said here before, the quality is very good.

So, I think I will go for 3mm rivets for the floor, 50mm spacing, same for the trans side panels and back seat panel. And, I don't look forward to this, but I will fit all the body kit elements with rivnuts, as most of you say that it has to be easily removable. As well as the top gearbox and propshaft covers.

Question: for the floor, should I use steel rivets (aluminium will be too weak?)

I'm sure I will have further questions when I start

Thank you very much.

[Ben_Copeland]

I would worry about steel rivets rusting as they aren't painted etc. Aluminium rivets are plenty strong enough, they are used in planes! Make sure you use closed end rivets

I don't like rivnuts, they have a horrible tendency of spinning with the bolt still in them

I ended up tacking the rivnuts to my chassis where they hold the nosecone on. The only other body part held on with them is the scuttle.