I'm changing my astradome on the Safari (Bought one of the repros from Vintage Trailer Supply) and I'm also planning to tackle the repair of the leaking aluminum vent which I mentioned in another thread, but I'm puzzled about this rivet type that's holding the riser mechanism to the vent.
On the exterior it's got a big dimple looking a lot like the rivets in the interior of the shell, but on the back side it has a sort of barrel shape that's nothing like the 3 legged splay that I experienced with my first Olympic riveting that I did yesterday when I had to reattach the door hinges.
I drilled the heads off the rivets and released the risers from the vent, but now I can't get the barrel of these babies out of the flat hingelike piece that attaches the riser to the vent. Any ideas for removal of these without damaging the oh so valuable and totally functional Hehr vent riser?
And once I do get it off what type of rivet should I use to reattach the vent riser to the new vent?
I'm changing my astradome on the Safari (Bought one of the repros from Vintage Trailer Supply) and I'm also planning to tackle the repair of the leaking aluminum vent which I mentioned in another thread, but I'm puzzled about this rivet type that's holding the riser mechanism to the vent.
On the exterior it's got a big dimple looking a lot like the rivets in the interior of the shell, but on the back side it has a sort of barrel shape that's nothing like the 3 legged splay that I experienced with my first Olympic riveting that I did yesterday when I had to reattach the door hinges.
I drilled the heads off the rivets and released the risers from the vent, but now I can't get the barrel of these babies out of the flat hingelike piece that attaches the riser to the vent. Any ideas for removal of these without damaging the oh so valuable and totally functional Hehr vent riser?
And once I do get it off what type of rivet should I use to reattach the vent riser to the new vent?
Thanks.
Steve H.
If you're referring to the three rivets pictured, they are most likely pop rivets. You can safely drill those out.
As far as removing the barrel, remove (gently pry) out the rivet looking part that is in the left of your picture, at the top of the barrel. You can then slide the inner piece from the outer barrel.
this looks like a standard pop rivet. All look like this except the Olympics, which have that 3-arm splay backside. They are are difficult to extract sometimes due to the barrel expaning a little in the hole (hole is slightly oversize, most likely). I often can remove them with lineman's pliers and a little twist. Or you can determine what the rivet size is and drill it out.
The inside rivets are mostly 1/8th, larger sizes are 5/32 and 3/16. The proper drill bits are numbered sizes, not fractional. Any (Inland RV) has many posts with the proper drill details--I have to look them up every durn time.
Thanks for the info. After a year of deconstructing the Bambi, this weekend was the first weekend I actually put something back together again, (although on a different trailer of course, the Bambi frame is at the welders). Anyway, I didn't realize that pop rivets were different than olympic rivets. I bought Olympic rivets to reattach the door hinges that had fallen off the Safari and realized when I squeezed one down that they had an unaesthetic looking three legged splay and that the rivets on the vents are actually going to be visible on both sides top and bottom and I sure wouldn't want to be laying in bed looking up at that three legged spread.
When I drilled these rivets, the heads popped off immediately so I didn't go all the way down the shaft. This left a round body part on both sides of the hinge they were holding. It's really hard to drill any further cause the drill keeps sliding off cause I'm essentially just drilling the top of a small piece of metal with nothing to keep the drill bit centered. What's happened then additionally I think is the rivet has sort of expanded on both sides of the hinge and is just squished in there and it's impossible to pull out without a lot of force and I'm terrified I'll bend and ruin the hinge on my cranks which I know sell for like 200 bucks on e-bay. If I could get a bench grinder maybe I could carefull grind them down. Or if I had a vise I might be able to use a grinding drill bit to grind them down to a point where the "fat" part is gone and I can pull them right out. Or maybe a drill press and some clamps would allow me to drill them out. Unfortunately I have none of these so my only options are more careful wiggiling pulling and prodding. Or I'll try to find someplace with aforementioned bench tools.
Meanwhile, thanks for pointing out that the olympics are different than pop rivets. I now understand the Airstream riveting scheme to be as follows . . .
External skin parts where one has access to both sides are "buck" riveted. These rivets are the smooth looking round heads on the outside and have a small flat pancake on the back side.
External skin parts where one does not have access to both sides are repaired using the "Olympic" Rivets which when shaved or dremeled down look on the outside just like the "Bucked" Rivets and on the inside (where they're never seen becaue they're not used if you have access to both sides) they have a threel legged splay. (photo attached if anyone's reading this that also isn't so sure.)
And finally, the internal skin and other things are attached using "Pop" rivets which I've not yet seen in their native "un riveted" state, but which I'll obviously need to get a bunch of and which have a round dimpled bullseye look on the outside and a short cylindrical "barrel" on the back that gets sort of pudged out by the riveter and consequently holds the sandwich in place.
Is that all correct?
Thanks again for straightening me out. It was very exciting to put something back together again finally. Here's a picture of the door I repaired with the unclipped, unshaved, and heavily "vulkemed" rivets. My very first rivet job!
(I should also note for any other "newbies" like me that the photo of the squeezed down Olympic rivet has the rubber washer still on it, but per most of the discussions on the boards I removed these washers before actually riveting on the door as most seem to agree that they will eventually deteriorate and result in leaks.)
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