Rivet show through on a 72

[Rob Rizza]

Wondering if anyone has experience dealing with rivets showing through along the support behind the headlights (if you've had this problem you know what I'm talking about). As far as I know it is caused by corrosion/oxidation of the rivet head under the fiberglass. I think the best way to deal with this problem is to grind off the back side of the rivets, then go through the surface fiberglass to uncover just the top side of the rivet (I figure a Dremel moto-tool would work well for the grinding and geting to the top side of the rivet). Once the top side is uncovered, use a punch from the back side to remove the decaying rivet. Replace the rivet, patch the glass, and then other than the planned paint job, I'm pretty much home free. Anyone have advice?

Thanks Rob

[Jerry Clark]

Re: Rivet show through on a 72

Hi Rob:

You have a good handle on the situation, the only thing I would do is to coat the new rivet with a rust inhibiting primer in an effort to avoid this next time,

jerry

[Joe L.]

Re: Rivet show through on a 72

Rob----

The genesis of the problem that you describe is rivet head corrosion as well as a basic manufacturing defect which plagued some cars. Unfortunately, I've forgotten exactly what the manufacturing defect was. In any event, your repair procedure is essentially what it takes to correct the problem.

There was an EXCELLENT article in an old edition of Vette Magazine written by Ralph Eckler, himself, on the the causes for this problem and a very detailed set of instructions for repairing the problem permanently. Unfortunately, I don't remember the issue number or date. I know that I have the magazine in my collection(I have just about every issue of Vette back to about 1978), but there's no way I could dig through them all to find it.