What is the best type size of pop rivet to use when fixing the floor panel to the chassis.
ie wide flange sealed blind etc

The best?? Cherrymax - no special tooling required - Universal head - Monel 5-2. Available from LAS at about £1 per rivet. Or on fleabay US - Beware other than Max rivets special tools are required.

Next best.......You want a stem lock system of some sort and not some crappy poprivet that will loosen up and shear if you sneeze. At about 10p per rivet you could try Advel they make a good aluminium rivet with a 7075 stem. You can install these by hand. Get the right grip lenth.

Hole size is everything - drill - debur drill again - debur. Use skin pins to hold things together - ebay.

Sorry Avdel not advel - the rivet I was talking about is the monobolt - it is available in 4.8mm Which is seriously sturdy and the right grip lenth. If you do a google search you will find a company in Bucks called Zygology they will post rivets out to you but....only in 1000s I think - ask?

£1 a rivet, That will knock a hole in the £250 budget.

I reckon good quality 5mm pop rivets will do the job just fine. Edited to say they were the ones supplied by MK.
Steve.

[Edited on 8/12/08 by stevec]

I used sealed rivets. Only downside is unless you've got seriously strong grip (enter joke re porn addiction here) you'll have difficulty using just a hand rivetter. I broke 2 trying to do one rivet!!!
An air rivetter of course has sealed rivets for breakfast so they're no problem.
Of course you can just use plain vanilla rivets and smear silicon sealant into the holes after popping them....

i used sealed rivets with a hand riveter no prob... it was my wrist that almost broke

sealed rivets and sikaflex has always been the generally accepted method here...

I've had some good advice from Primary Fasteners which I'm glad to pass on.

The major benefit of sealed rivets over the non-sealed variety is their strength brought about by a higher magnesium content of the alloy. If the floor is structural it's a good idea to use sealed rivets.

I'm told its a fallacy that non sealed rivets will leak water in. The nail will in most cases seal effectively.

Advice is to set the spacing at 10 times the rivet diameter.

8mm long rivets grip 1-3mm
9.5mm " 3-4.5mm
11mm " 4-6mm

I hope this is of interest.

John

3.2mm sealed aluminium rivets from Zygology.

8mm and 6mm length both £15~£16/1000. That was last weeks prices. The 8's were cheaper than the 6's, oddly enough.

Nev.

Nev, just for comparison, I bought the following from Primary Fasteners also last week and the prices are as follows; All excluding VAT

500 Sealed 4.0 x 9.5 @ £9.58
500 Sealed 3.2 x 8 @ £7.34
500 Sealed 3.2 x 9csk @ £7.54

My floor is 1.2mm plus adhesive plus 1.6mm wall tube so I've gone for 4 x 9.5mm to be on the safe side. Rivets will be at 40mm centres.

I've bought polyurethane panel adhesive from Ebay item number 220293526984 @ £5.99 a cartridge. This is for bonding in the floor and filling up any gaps etc. So a very good price, time will tell if it is any good!!

John

I am a bit anal about rivets - My car is held together with more than 6000 of the dammed things!

I am confused by "if the floor is structual" why would you not want to get the maximum benefit from the biggest shear plate in the whole structure?


The problem with the bog standard pop rivet is that the broken stem falls backwards into the tube leaving a pathetic little aluminium tube to take all of the shear. Those shear forces will be consideable. At the first sign of movement that little tube will give way and then do nothing at all other than rattle.

The sealed rivets are a bit better as a small part of the mandril remains stuck inside to reinforce the tubular rivet - However there is still usually part of the tube unsupported.

a lock stem rivet - such as the monobolt (OK the Cherry rivets are not locost - sorry) fills the tube up permanantly with a good quality bit of aluminium. That has good shear strenth and as a bonus is watertight.

My guess is that on the average locost with a silkaflexed floor the rivets will be doing nothing useful at all after 6 months.

John

quote: I am confused by "if the floor is structual" why would you not want to get the maximum benefit from the biggest shear plate in the whole structure?

John you may well be right in terms of absolute strength but on all the cars I've built and been involved with, sealed and unsealed aluminium rivets have been used with and without panel adhesive and I have never encountered any problems such as lozenging of the chassis or rivets shearing and bear in mind my cars have been used not only for racing but also on Classic Trials which arguably are even harder on the structure.

I'd be interested to hear of other people's experiences and to know whether they too think that standard rivets are inadequate for attaching the floor.

John

This thread is very interesting, can anyone give any advice on stainless rivets ? i've been given a load and my side panels are stainless steel so am planning on using them, i presumed they would be stronger/better than ali ones ?

Sorry to hi-jack thread a little, but my floor is weleded in.

Regards Andy

[Edited on 10/12/08 by Andybarbet]

[Edited on 3/2/09 by Coopz]

my floor is held on with 5mm rivets from CBS, they are just standard pop rivets i think, once the floor was in place i got in a had a good bounce on the floor and its still on and doesn't seem to be loose... i guess time will tell.

Hi all nice debate on blind rivets .
I have worked in the aircraft construction and maintenance for many years and put in many thousands of these rivets.
I have to say at this point that they are only used if there is no other viable way of fixing your matrial . so in the case of your floor . i would use 18s gauge steel and have this welded to the under side
this has more plus points than your pop riv floor .
1 No holes drilled into your chassie
2More ridged chassie
3Greater protection to driver and pasenger
4stronger to stand on.
If you like the alu checker look just drop this on your steel floor after sound proof and paint ext .
IF you have powdercoated chassie try to get this work done first however i have doubts over powder coating
You should be able to pull up to 5/32 alu cherry with pop pliers /monel and 3/16 you will need a cherry max gun ,grip gauge correct drill size . good look i recomend the welded floor . but if not go for the 5/32 cherrys on aircraft normal spacing on open areas is around 4 x dia you could go alot more for a car 10 x ext
Hope this helps .