At 01:38 AM 1/13/2008 -0500, Rush wrote:
>We need to attach powder-coated steel to the outside of a painted
>aluminum truck body. I don't want to set up a galvanic reaction and I've
>never pop riveted anything into aluminum.
Jon,
That's kind of the nice thing about pop rivets - the will join anything
since it's mechanical attachment like a nut & bolt.
>-How do we prevent galvanic corrosion?
For galvanic reaction to take place both the metals would have to be bare.
Since the steel is power coated, and I assume the Al truck body is treated
(ie. painted), then the only place that you'd have any bare metal is in
the middle of the holes that you drill to put the pop rivet.
>-Are there special pop-rivets or tools for putting rivet into aluminum?
The pop rivet gun really doesn't touch the base metals. The gun only
touches the head of the rivet. As you pull on the trigger it pulls a
plug from the back of the pop rivet towards the gun until it deforms
the rivet enough to get stuck and the pin in the head of the rivet
snaps or pops.
Have you ever used a pop rivet gun? It's not hard. It's like a heavy
duty stapler, sort of. But they have different heads that screw into
the barrel to accomodate different diameter pop rivets. You push the
nail like piece into the gun, then press the pop rivet into the hole,
and squeeze the trigger until the nail head pops. Remove the nail
piece, insert a new pop rivet and go on to the next mounting hole.
Other than that no special tools are required. How heavy is this item
you're planning to attach. If you are afraid that it will pull the rivets
out, then they do make rivet washers that you place on the back side of
the rivet, if you can reach it, to help spread the forces just like a
regular washer does with nuts & bolts.
>The truck body is held together with some large diameter rivets, but I
>am guessing they had two-sided access when they assembled it. We only
>have access from one side.
Are you sure the rivets are pretty large? The reason I ask, is that in
most cases the truck panels are glued together now, and the pop rivets
are used as clamps to hold the pieces of the body together while the glue
drys.
The make 2 different styles of pop rivets, a regular head and a large
head. I think there is a name for them, but I can't think of it off
hand. On my Bricklin, they used 3/16" diameter large head pop rivets
to hold the body panels in place while the glue that attached the
fiberglass and acrylic skin to the body. Other parts of the car, they
used 3/16" dia. regular head pop rivets to hold other things in place.
In addition to the 2 styles, they make at least 2 different types based
on the metal make up. Most pop rivets are Al. but they do make steel
pop rivets where you need extra strength. They also make a plastic
pop rivet, I believe.
Hope this helps.
John
John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair1948@cox.net
Va. Beach, Va
Phone: (757) 495-8229
48 TR1800 48 #4 Midget 65 Morgan 4/4 Series V (B1106)
75 Bricklin SV1 (#0887) 77 Spitfire 71 Saab Sonett III
65 Rambler Classic
Morgan: www.team.net/www/morgan
Bricklin: www.bricklin.org
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