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Floorpan rivets


Golf Juliet Tango

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  • Area Representative

I have a recurrence of loosing rivets from the floor pan.  This is along the tunnel side under the driver's seat.

Annoying but luckily the MoT examinier just pointed them out, so I can get them replaced.  My guess is that they were aluminum rather than steel.  Obviously I don't want bimetal corrosion.

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I had to drill out and remove all the rivets in the aluminium interior side panels before fitting carbon panels.  The rivets that run along the floor plan are definitely stainless steel and I replaced them with the same spec (albeit black coated for cosmetic reasons) 4mm x 12mm black A2 stainless dome rivets from Accu.co.uk.  An air rivet gun is highly recommended if you are doing more than a couple !

Also a good idea to spray Waxoyl / Dinitrol in the chassis tubes as you have access through the rivet holes.

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Stephen, if your floor is load bearing then definitely go with Stainless rivets and upgrade to 5mm so you can squirt in plenty of ACF50 or similar which will help not only reduce the corrosion tendency but also bind the residue of the drilled out rivets and stop them rattling.

On older models the seat/ driver load is taken by steel straps across the chassis rails so ally rivets are ok but I'd still have a few 5mm rivets rather than all 4mms so you can squirt in rustproofing

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Interesting thought Grumpy - I wonder of the rivets were ever there (I don't look under the car often).

Stephen hi, This was a day after collecting the car after a reskin, respray and new lowered floor from one of the very recommended dealers often praised here on BC. There were numerous defects (including a leaking brake pipe union  *furious* which had dripped onto the paintwork and blistered it, fortunately under the front rail so it's not seen) rivet missing from the bonnet catch, nose cone dzus only had 1 rivet holding it in place due to broken fibre glass, 2 heater fixings broken and a broken pin in the side repeater plug (which took an hours diagnosing). Not to mention crinkly armourfend.

They did offer to fix the defects after seeing the photos but I couldn't face another two x 400 plus mile round trips for the fixes which I repaired easily enough with a few rivets, fibre matting and some touch up paint but the armourfend still looks like Stevie Wonder fitted it. 

 

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Arch or 'Nearn era' chassis tend to be more compliant & often loosen or pop rivets especially along the centre spine of the floor area.

Having owned two K Series it was always part of the annual service to replace a handful of loose or 'popped rivets '. Over the years some had to go up to the next size. I just replaced with standard Monel metal tucker pops.


 

 

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I thought stainless rivets should be avoided with aluminium due to galvanic corrosion weakening the floor. I'm pretty sure the rivets holding the floor on my Seven are mild steel as some of the heads have gone rusty.

Duncan

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Fair point but remember that the aluminium rivet is fastening the aluminium floor to the steel chassis, so there will always be some galvanic reaction going on if the base and fasteners are different materials. Environmental conditions have a big influence as long as you don't use it as a beach buggy you should be fine

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