Rivet Removal - what's the secret?

dtgolder

dtgolder

Precision Fit
Aug 20, 2024
884
Somewhere
First Name
D
Willys Model
  1. CJ
Willys Year:
  1. 1952
One more project as I'm waiting on my engine at the machine shop...decided I've had enough of the floppy brake pedal--had bought new parts (brake & pedal cross shaft and tube bracket) a while back, but never got around to installing them (clutch arm is ok, still need to buy a new brake arm). I tried just the shaft (using the old tube as it was riveted (and welded) and I didn't want to mess with it) but there was still more play than I liked...

So this morning I decided to get the tube bracket off and replace everything.

I thought (!) I could just grind off the head of the rivets and the use a punch to drift them out.

Wrong.

I ended up griding out the old tube, then grinding out the leftover "ears" that were welded to the frame (what a chore). What I ended up with is the rivets now sticking out of the frame about 1/4 inch, and I can't get them to budge.

Decided to drill them out--broke one drill :mad: (but got it out). Eventually got tired enough that I called it quits at 1/4". Have quite a bit more to drill out...

Yet there's got to be an easier way (I may try pressing them out tomorrow with a big C clamp...)

Wondering if anyone has any tricks to getting these out? I would normally consider heating them (and I may try that a bit tomorrow) but I have electric wires, brake lines, and fuel hose running right through that area...

Any ideas? Soaking them with PB Blaster right now, hoping I can loosen them up a bit without having to drill them all the way out--working under the car to do this is a bit of a PITA...

Appreciate any ideas from folks that have done this...

d
 
Rivet 101: Small frame rivets are cold set, ie... no heat... just insert and a head is set cold with impacts or a die. When this happens the shank swells to fill the hole (tight!) the only way to remove them is remove the head (s) and drill out the shank with a smaller bit to relieve the press fit. Any pounding with a punch just swells the shank and makes things tighter. just about any small rivet up to 1/2 inch is cold set.

You can heat the area up red and pound the shank out, but with damage to the metal around the rivet! A hot set rivet is loose in the hole as the hot iron swells to the hole size and then shrinks as the metal cools . A hot set rivet you can remove the head and punch the body out with a air hammer (chipping gun)...

Phil
 
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Thanks @WA7OPY (although I was hoping for an easier solution...) Good information (as I probably will skip trying the C clamp and just keep drilling...)

As much as this has been a royal PITA, it really needed to be done, and I'm sure I'll be happy once it's complete...
 
Having just completed a swap between a 55 and 62 frame, I became a bit accomplished at this task. I needed to remove the engine mount brackets and spring hangers on both frames to accomodate the L-226 being installed into the 62 frame with the Tornado bracket. More damn rivits than I care to count. The techniquie I used was to remove one head of the rivit using a thin cutoff wheel, and then using a punch and three pound hammer I removed the remaining part of the rivit. About half of the rivits came out relatively easily, and the other half required a bit more punch work or as a last resort using my oxy/acetelyene torch with the proper tip which allowed me to concentrate the heat on the the rivel without overheating the surrounding metal.

For the most part, my left thumb has just about recoved from the errant blows that missed the punch....late in the game I began using a heavy welding glove on my left hand to cushion those misapplied blows. I'm a slow learner.

It was intersesting to examine the rivits after they were free from the frame, you could easily identify the stubborn ones by the amount of swell in the body of the rivit. Clearly, the installation of rivits was inconsistent in the manufacturing process which comes as no real surprise. I never used a drill to get any of the rivits out.
 
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Just closing the loop on this (in case it helps someone else out in the future)--was able (after quite a bit of work) to get this out.

Had to:

a) Grind the center section out of the tube bracket so I could get to the rivet heads
b) Grind off the rivet heads
c) Couldn't tap them out so...
d) Had to grind off the welds on the edges of the remaining parts of the tube bracket
e) Cold chisel those off until they were free
f) Again tried tapping out the rivets (to no avail)
g) Then drilled out the center of the rivets with increasing sized drills until the rivets eventually started to spin
h) Was then able to drift them out
i) Finally increased the size of the hole on the frame and the new bracket to 7/16 -14 (so I could use a slightly larger grade 8 bolt)

In retrospect had I known I would need to drill them out, I would have skipped steps d and e above (removing the side plates) and just drilled and drifted out the rivets. Then I would have had easier access to grind off the welds to remove the side pieces (either way they had to come off, just would probably have been better off just drilling the old rivets out once I had ground off the heads).

As an aside I used a 60 grit flap disk (rather than a grinding wheel). I find I have a lot more control with a flap disk.
 

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