foundvettelifeisgood

I have the rivot dimples above my headlights, and I'm going to repaint the car this winter.

Can these dimples be permanently eliminated? I'm afraid of seeing them show up again in a few years, and I'm not confident the painter will make them go away completely to begin with.

Should I hold off and save the extra money to get a new front clip? :cry

GDaina

AS strange as this sounds, that is good that you are seeing the rivets, that is if you are into NCRS.

Jughead

I can't confirm this as fact, but a guy at a body shop here told me flat out that those markings were caused by the mold or frame used at the factory to support the body when a Corvette was painted/assembled. He said after many years the dimples start to appear. He sounded believable since he didn't hesitate one second to think of an answer. Is he correct?? I don't know. :D Sounded resonable to me.

Big Fish

Those dimples are caused by rust. There is a under body reinforcement riveted there, rust has built up between the reinforcement and surround skin. This causes the reinforcement to exert pressure on the rivets as the rust is trying to push things apart. To repair you should remove the reinforcement and recondition it, then re-attach. If the dimples are only filled, they will come back as more rust eventually forms. :banghead:

mrvette

BF, you just about right there, the guy telling me the entire story was a vette expert...seems from what I see he is right.....they used aluminum rivits to hold the underneath glass to the steel support, that glass was then bonded to the top piece....well the aluminum rivit heads corrode over time/moisture, and expand in the spot on top of the sub unit there, and are trapped by the surrounding glues....
trick is, grind off the underside rivits, drop off the support bars, then drill out the heads and then rebond a clean metal support strip to the underside....
this releives any pressure from rivits, as they no longer exist....

GENE

foundvettelifeisgood

Gene--Can this be done with the clip on the car? I'm pulling the hood and radiator out to replace the radiator. If so, sounds like the time to do it, right? :confused:

norvalwilhelm

I agree with BigFish and Mrvette they are corrosion at work and unless it is fixed they will continue to appear.

GTR1999

Gene is correct,aluminum rivets that corrode and expand up under the galss and paint. If you sand the paint down thinking you'll hide the rivets they'll come back. If you drill through them then you'll have the problem of holes showing up due to shrinkage. I removed the support brace from th enose to paint it and remove the rivets. The replacement supports are made to make up the 1/8" difference from the original supports. THe originals were held in by a bonding strip. It was sandwiched in between the nose and the support. I used a hammer and chisel to knock it out and it was a bear to do. I found a NOS bonding strip to reuse my original support,otherwise I would have had to go with a new one. Use 3M adhesive to bond it in. I don't recall the number , I think it's 8115? panel adhesive. Needs a special gun to apply too.Auto body shops will have them both. I rebuilt the headlight buckets but haven't had a chance to install the support to the nose yet.
Gary

foundvettelifeisgood

Well if the support is sandwiched and glued and a bear to remove, are the rivets overkill?

ARE YOU READY FOR THE BUBBA QUESTION?

If I drill off the heads from above and putty over the holes, will the glue be enough to keep the support in place and functional?

:eek:

GTR1999

To clarify my last post. The bonding strip was rivited to the support then it was bonded to the nose. I think by 73 GM perfected the bonding system and stopped using the rivets. When I removed the support I was chiseling the bond between the nose and bonding strip. The support came out with the rivets still attached.
If you drill out the rivets from above then you'll have to fill the holes and that where you might have problems. Maybe not right away but over time they may sink in and you'll have the hole pattern all over again. Like when people remove luggage racks. Some have replaced the rivets with ss screws but I don't think you have to do that as long as you use the 3M adhesive. I have the bonding strip glued to the support now and it seems pretty tight. The thing I have to do now is align the support in place on the nose so the headlights open without hitting. Again if you replace the support with an aftermarket support then you don't need the bonding strip, just glue it on the nose.

stingry

:iagree:

Its a common problem. If you have corroded rivets you may want to look around the rest of the car also.

LemansBlue68

I agree with all of the posts above. The "popping" is definitely the result of corrosion. If you simply smooth out the "pops" they will come back. To fix mine I ground through the 'glass to the heads of the rivets. Sure enough, many were corroded to the point that they were almost completely gone. After grinding off the remaining rivet head I knocked the rest of it out with a punch and re-riveted the header bar with OEM style rivets. I used panel bonding compound to fill the voids around the rivet heads and then glassed over the heads with 3-4 plies of new 'glass mat and resin to fill the holes. Then I smoothed it all back down with a DA sander and filled any small irregularities with fiberglass body filler (not bondo).

It was a lot of work but looks great now. I was afraid to just take the header bar loose and rebond it because the fiberglass at each one of those "pops" has taken a set over many years. I was afraid that the "memory" of the fiberglass in those areas might cause the "pops" to return. Maybe this was overkill but I only wanted to do this repair once.

The repair is now completely indistinguishable from the factory original.

foundvettelifeisgood

Lemans--Sounds like a fun project that I could do before taking it for paint. Where do you get OEM style rivets?

ksbunting

LeMans Blue,
Have you any pictures of your car you can e-mail me.
I am restoring my 68 back to original LeMans blue code 976 and would like to see any pictures you might have.
I have the dimple problem also, so now I am thinking should I,,,,,,,,,
Thanks,
Kurt