Truck Frame Rivet Substitute

To remove solid rivets we used grind the heads off, drill hole about 3/4 deep into rivet with a drill slightly smaller than the diameter of the rivet,insert pin punch/ masonry nail in hole, back the peened side with a fairly heavy steel rod which has a hole drilled into it's end to fit fairly loosely over the peen. give the punch a whack and the rivet comes out with minimal distortion to the rivetted material. To peen new rivets, we have used hammer drills, air chisels, small and large rotary hammer drills which have an old drill/chisel with the tip cut off and a concave drilled/ground/milled into their ends. Why not just replace the rivets with rivets?.
John.

I have seen "rivets" that were made for that. they actually had rivet heads and bolt shanks. I think that in Va you had to use these to pass inspection, but I could be wrong. Ed

Had the day off today so I bought a 3/4" wide x 12" long cold chisel. Each rivet took a dozen strikes with a 2# masons hammer to be deheaded.
A run to the local fastenal merited me some grade 8 7/16" bolts and flange nuts. I needed to make some .250" washers to take up the slack. Unfortunatly!!!! some shmuck left his torch bottles on.
I will have to get some 1.250 x .250 strap steel tomorrow.
I will post some pictures when I get this job wrapped up.

Sent from somewhere in East Texas Jake Parker

If you want to get technical, the proper way is to ream to a snug fit (tap in bolt with hammer) for a grade 8 body-bound shoulder bolt.

Whether replacing big steel bridge rivets or little aluminum aircraft rivets, the process is the same. Some of these factors have been bounced around a bit so far.

1. Remove the head. Usually, this is centerpunch and drill, because a drill removes the material faster and cleaner than a grinder. But run whatcha brung for this. Take off a head, punch out the rest. Important point: don't booger up the surrounding structure.

2. Clean up the hole. Rivets expand. Bolts do not. So a sloppy hole that gets a rivet (very commonly done) is inadequate for proper bolt fitment. A close fit between bolt shank and hole is important. This can be problematic because if the holes were supposed to be 1/4" and they're all wallowed out, going to a 0.03" oversize fastener won't be found at Ace hardware -- you'll have to go to a fastener supplier. Going to 5/16" (0.062" over) probably won't present a structural problem. The key is to have good clean holes for such fatigue-critical structure as a perch. If it was just a bump-stop -- that gets touched rarely -- then it wouldn't matter so much.

3. Don't bear on the threads! Have a clean piece of shank in contact with the framework. Shanks are for loading; threads are for holding a nut. Rely on the structure, not the friction of the structure. The tighter that unthreaded shank fits, the better.

4. Grade 8 does not matter. This is the go-to 'solution' for many people, but it's not necessary, especially in this. Sure, they're all gold and everything so it looks good and certainly can't hurt, but it's not a critical decision at all. The strength of this joint comes solely from the fitment of the hole and shank, not from any magic the bolt material brings. When the material thicknesses grow from sheetmetal bendups to machine fittings, then a stouter bolt is required. A Grade 5 is stronger than the surrounding material, so it'll do fine. Not a biggie. Just sayin....

I think about all of this has been mentioned in one form or another. I just wanted to wrap it up in a package because all the points matter.

Wrat

Smaller rivets 1/2" or less, I center punch and drill head then punch out. Larger rivets get cut off using a scarfing tip (oxy/acct) being careful not to gauge the parent metal. I'v used both grade 5 or 8 bolt , as long as its a snug fit. I have encountered harden rivets in the past.