Stripped my chassis of all ali panels and will be having steel welded in - have to fill in the old rivet holes and can't really be arsed welding each one up.

Are these 'chemical metal' products any use for this sort of thing, or should I just bite the bullet and weld 6,345,987 holes?

Why are you welding in steel panels?

[Edited on 3/8/08 by SeaBass]

I've used chemical metal for non structural stuff before and it is quite good - just make sure you only mix up what you can use quickly as it goes off quite quickly.

Curious as to why you;re welding in steel panels though - it'll add a hell of a lot of weight.

I knew when I posted this message that there would be more references to the steel panels aspect than the Q I asked

Been discussed elsewhere, but very briefly - by my rough calculation the steel will add another 13 kilos to the car... my engine will have (hopefully) around 450 bhp, so I'm not too concerned about the weight!

The reason = I have stripped and re-furbished a number of cars with rivet panels, and I absolutely HATE drilling out rivets, trying to remove the panels so gently that I can re-use them again, failing miserably in this endeavor, throwing stuff across the garage, cutting new panels, drilling them to match the old one and then re-riveting them!

I also HATE having corroded chassis members (hence the reason I'm often stripping them and re-powdercoating them). A single steel structure makes stripping a day job and re-assembly no more than a weekend work!

So, to put it bluntly... I'm a lazy b*stard!

Hope you have managed to get all the old rivet ends out of the tubes - they don't half rattle

Nope... couldn't be arsed with all the pallaver, so poked the little buggers through and squirted a dollop of waxoyl here and there.

quote:

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Originally posted by minitici
Hope you have managed to get all the old rivet ends out of the tubes - they don't half rattle

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Whats wrong with alloy and sikaflex
that's how buses are made very few rivets

Yep - had thought of that... but again, it involves too much labour (by my standards!) to strip when the time comes.

Hi

Whatever you use to seal the rivet holes will be subject to the heat of welding the steel panels and as such the only method I'd be confident would retain it's integrity from the corrosion point of view would be welding. Even then I'm not sure how you would treat the interface between the panels and box sections, (sealing fillets after welding?).

Regards Mick

Ah... good point, well made!

Think I'll cut the panels, so they stop just short of the rivet holes... the seam weld can perhaps deal with both at once?