2017 F15A Starting over

[aj.lec]

Very hard to find round head in Australia , mostly tapered and usually only up to 5/16
Last batch I bought I got out of the USA
Blacksmith Bolt and Rivet Supplies
BlacksmithBolt.com
PO Box 80830
Portland Oregon 97280

Good to deal with
Reasonable price on rivets but transport is a shocker back to Australia. Makes for expensive rivets. Can make your own but hard to stop them expanding the diameter under the new head

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/at...3&d=1237691303

Are you after 3/8 or 1/2 inch and how many ?

Originally Posted by Jacques Reed

Hi Ian,

Will look forward to reading how you form the rivet heads for your project.
My same rear crossmember has some wastage on it and a long term project is to someday replace that with a good donor crossmember I salvaged.

I saved one of the original donor crossmember rivets as a sample as per attached photo.
The dimension may be out a bit due to deformation as the rivet is driven but that was the diameter (inches) of the shank of the rivet as miked after removing all rust.

If you, or anyone else, ever find a supplier of the correct round head rivets please let me know.

Cheers,

[Jacques Reed]

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for that source of Button Head rivets in the USA. I only want a dozen of the 3/8" ones so they would work out very expensive.
Bit of a cold day here so not being in the shed I drew up the sketch of a 3/8" Button Head rivet to pass the time. May be of some interest to fellow restorers.

Courtesy of my 1966 edition of "Machinery's Handbook".

Cheers,

[Phil Waterman]

Hi

While using rivits properly installed is the ideal approach, the alternative is bolts. The issue is that the bolt or rivit must be a tight fit in both layers of steel.

When I reassembled the frame of my Pat 12 C60L line bored each rivit hole location inplace through all layers to be attached. Each hole was sized so that it would be a drive fit on the shank of grade 8 bolt. Getting the bolts the right length so that the shank (unthreaded section) extended through the steel was the hard part. In the end I bought many different bolt lenghts. Then torque bolts to 75% of max for the bolt size.

The truck has been on the road for about 10 years with a lot of hard off road work hauling firewood with no signs of any of the joints loosening.

Cheers Phil