Replace rock guard hinge rivet with screws?

[TankerIP]

My left window rock guard had a hinge come completely loose when the two rivets broke. It's very hard to get a rivet gun in that position to replace them. So I went to an RV place and with some trouble they fixed it. Not a great job but, we thought were good to go. THEN.....the bottom rivets also broke.

It is so difficult to re-rivet those hinges. Why not just drill through when cleaning out the old rivets and put screws instead? The screw heads would be visible on the outside, but the nuts would be between the guard frame and the trailer.

Any downside on this?? Advice??

[TankerIP]

Here are some pictures to give you guys an idea of what I'm talking about.
The plan is to drill all the way through the rock guard frame to let me put a screw, instead of rivets in place.

Now, one thing I thought about was the quality of screws. I would think that stainless screwws would be the best. Where do I look for these? Fastenal maybe? I propose to put the regular ones in there now to get me on the way and replace them when I find better screws.

I just have to have a steady hand as I drill through the rock guard frame.

[mandolindave]

So bare with me if I am missing something, or am talking about something you don't need to know.

First off, what I see in the picture is a bolt not a screw. The way I see it, is that a nut and bolt will need to be very tight, so that it won't loosen up. So tight that it may collapse the window frame a bit. Rivets can be just a little tight, and not have a risk of falling off.

If you still need to go with the nut and bolt…could you use 2 nuts ( the first nut you put on would just be snug, and the second nut could be very tight against the first nut, perhaps with a lock washer between the two nuts ) But I can't tell from the picture if there would be room enough for two nuts. So sorry if this does not help

[TankerIP]

Yep. I thought about lock (split) washer, two nuts and maybe lock tite from a tube. I'm as worried as you might be.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[CBWELL]

Use a self locking nut. Works much better. Chris

[HiJoeSilver]

Self locking nylon nut may be to thick , same for double nutting. Single nut and some blue loctite and you should be good. Or if they do fit, double nuts and loctite, or nylon nut and loctite.

[TankerIP]

Well, you can see the finished project. I had to use available supplies at the house --- standard nuts and bolts. Before drilling holes all the way through, I first tried again to get the rivet gun in place, but had no success. Of the three rivets installed by the repairman in the upper hinge, two had "ripped" out.

Thanks for the suggestions. I found lock washers, and enough nuts to double lock it. I couldn't find and loctite blue, but I did find a very old tube of loctitie red. I used a very sparing dot of that.

I'll try these for a while, possibly I can keep a lookout for more attractive bolts as I go along.

[polarlyse]

Any GOOD hardware store will have bolts for you in stainless along with an assortment of locking hardware. Your repair looks good to me. Fastenal might work also but they may want to sell in box quantities so beware