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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Riveting

Installed the rear vertical cappings today. Thanks to Matt in Victoria, BC, who gave some excellent tips, and some past aircraft experience, doing the riveting was easy. You can see some photos of Matt's beautifully done project here.

Due to the damage to the rear corners, a few of the rivet holes in the tub were sub-standard, some being stretched, some enlarged, some would not line up flush with the capping surface, etc., and so some creativity was required when actually doing the riveting. A couple of shanks had to be deliberately made to bend a little sideways while making sure the heads stayed flush, and some longer ones were used so the extra material would fill the holes better as they were hammered down (this is not an aircraft!). A slower than normal hammer rate was used also on the awkward rivets, as I found it gave better control. All in all everything came out well.

Incidentally, a test of the rear lights showed that their attachment screws don't align with the holes in the capping. Modifications will have to be made, preferably to the light bases as I don't want to drill any new holes in the capping.

Also installed the front mud flaps. While the quality of these is good (from Rovers North, a Christmas gift from the lovely T), modifications still had to be made to get them to fit: the holes on the chassis end had to be enlarged to 5/16", and the bracket bend on the sill end had to be adjusted so that it would align with the holes.

In case you notice the water on the floor, on the left of the photo, it's because we are having some exceptionally heavy rain today, and when that happens the garage floods (but not too badly!). : )