Steel rivets???

[edleeseng]

I need help! I am in the middle of prepping my 1972 Argosy 20' TT for paint and have a question. The endcaps of my trailer are both steel. The rivets around the bottom of the endcaps are all flat and don't look like the rivets on the rest of the trailer (they are all the traditional rounded ones.) I would like to replace the "flat" rivets with new, aluminum ones. Are these rivets different? Are they steel and not aluminum? Or are they supposed to be flat and I should leave them be? Would appreciate any and all help. Thanks!

[thecatsandi]

If you are riveting steel to steel use steel or stainless steel rivets. IF you are riveting aluminum to steel, a coupe things you will need a barrier between the aluminum and the steel. You will need to use stainless rivets. Otherwise you will get galvanic corrosion.

[Gkiesel]

I was looking at my end cap rivets yesterday, they look the same as the rest of the trailer. Is it possible that yours have been replaced in the past? I always thought that AS used Olympic rivets throughout.

[Excella CM]

Use rivets of the same type metal as you are riveting to avoid dis-similar metal electrolysis problems. There are flat head rivets (flush rivets) that fit into a specially prepared depression made in the two pieces of adjoining metal and must be bucked on the back side. They are quite a bit more trouble to use. In general, there is no good reason to use flush rivets on a trailer unless one wanted paint the finished product and have no rivets showing. Because bucked rivets require access to the back side of the panel, repairs are often done from the outside with a special type of rivet that uses a breakaway mandrel-a type of "pop" rivet. These are made by an outfit called Olympic and use a special shaver(optional) to profile the head after the rivet is installed.

[thecatsandi]

You can also use Cherry rivets. They use them in aircraft. If it is structual then use cherry max rivets. available at an aircraft supplier.