Bed of Nails

(Author: ikom Saturday May 15, 2004, May,15,2004May,15,2004

Saturday May 15, 2004
I get up early for a Saturday (7:15AM) and start drilling the chassis pedal area for the custom double skin which will wrap into the end of the passenger side panel and make a solid (and much better IMHO) seal as compared to the factory's method of merely caulking it against the chassis. There are pictures of this panel junction, which describes this much better than I can explain in words.

At 10:30 AM my son arrives and helps me upend the chassis so that I can start work on the bonding and riveting of the belly pan panels. He leaves for a get together with friends in Calgary (three hour drive) who are staging an import car show there. His company has donated a bunch of door prizes for the show and he wants to check out the cars at the show and also see if there any new trends in the business that he should be aware of. He won't be coming back until late Sunday so I am on my own.

I use the factory supplied "Waxoyl" and spritz the entire chassis through the drilled holes - skipping every two holes or thereabouts with the plastic nozzle extension until I am satisfied that the chassis will not rust from the inside out (factory cautions about this - probably more prone for this to happen in the wet and humid UK). I then wipe down the entire chassis with a towel soaked in Brake Cleaner to degrease it in preparation for the "Glue and Seal" bonding stage.

I collect, the Wurth "Glue and Seal" (this is the same product as the factory supplied "Klebt und Dichtet") see the picture of the two cartridges side by side, that I managed to buy from my local Wurth agent here in Canada.
The rivets, air rivet gun, some WD 40 to clean up the "Glue and Seal", lots of heavy duty paper towels, latex gloves, brake cleaner, clamps etc.

I start by puncturing the "Glue and Seal" cartridge and using my caulking gun run a test bead around the perimeter of both lowered floor pans which had also been previously degreased with a paper towel soaked in brake cleaner - the factory has intermittent welds around these lowered pans but recommend sealing between welds to make the cockpit water tight. This stuff is very stiff and a real challenge to work with since it comes out of the nozzle very slowly and it is extremely difficult to make a consistent bead. I persevere and extrude a bead from the nozzle as best as I can and hope I can smooth it with the boxful of Popsicle sticks that I have in the garage. The stuff is also very tenacious and even a slight amount on the latex gloves will get onto anything you subsequently touch - After wrestling with it for awhile, I just start replacing gloves rather than contend with the nearly impossible task of cleaning it with the WD40. I smooth the resulting bead with a Popsicle stick and it looks passable.

Next task is to apply it to the chassis members before the panels can be riveted. I continue with the application of the "Glue and seal" making sure that I run a fairly flat bead (the nozzle was cut at about a 30 degree angle) all the way across the rivet holes to ensure that water does not find a route into the chassis tubes by this route either. The wider chassis tubes get a double bead for a good waterproof bond. I carefully position the panels without their protective plastic coat and when I am satisfied, start inserting the literally hundreds of rivets into the pre-drilled holes. I insert every last rivet since I want to make sure that every hole in the chassis is perfectly aligned with its corresponding mate on the panels before I pop a single rivet with the gun.

The belly pan looks like a bed of nails before the rivets are popped. I make sure that the rivet gun nozzle face is perfectly flat against the rivet head before the trigger is pulled; this ensures a perfectly formed (evenly compressed) cosmetically good-looking rivet head. It also ensures that the rivet gun will not stray onto the panel with the uneven force of the impact and leave a scratch on the very soft and prone to mark aluminum panels.

I am happy with the work; I clean up around the sporadic rivet that oozed "Glue and Seal" with WD40, seal the cartridge nozzle with some household plastic wrap and call it a day since I will need help to put the chassis back on the dolly in an upright position for the next task - the installation of the cockpit panels.