Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area Driveline Replacing Rivets for bolts

The term "Plastic" covers a wide variety of synthetic materials with different physical properties- - - - -Nylon, Teflon, Rayon, Dacron, etc.- - - -and those are just the petroleum-based products produced by DuPont. There's a story about how those names came to be. One of the very early "computers" back in the 1940's was tasked by DuPont with combining random syllables to suggest names for new products, resulting in the above names for the various products their chemists were churning out. One such name was rejected, after a researcher from another country pointed out that in his language, the word meant "outhouse"! That story was shared with me by a DuPont chemical engineer who also ran one of the race cars my father built engines for.
Jerry

The simple, effective, and more or less foolproof way to install shock absorber mounts, crossmembers, and other parts that carry suspension loads are "Huck" bolts. They're basically pop rivets on steroids and they clamp pieces together tightly and expand to fill holes completely, preventing any relative motion between parts. They're a lot simpler to install than hot rivets, and they have a 50+ year history of holding big rigs together. Some types of them can be installed without special tools- - - -nothing but an impact wrench is needed.
Jerry

Jerry, I think you are confusing Huck bolts with structural blind rivets. The largest Huck bolt or magna grip that can be pulled with air over hydraulic is a 3/8". The Huck 256 which pulls them costs around $3,000 without the pulling tip. The nose piece is around $500. I own two of them. I keep a 3/8 tip in one of them and a 5/8 tip because we do a lot of trailer repairs. The things that resemble pop rivets are usually called blind Huck or Monobolts. They are in places where it is impossible to use a buck rivet or Huck bolt. Truck manufactures use 5/8 and 3/4 inch Huck bolts. The machine to pull them costs them costs around $100,000. I'm not sure just what you would do with am impact wrench to pull either a Huck Bolt or a blind. Huck bolts are cheaper to install at the factory, but they break after a lot of salt exposure. I replace them with grade 8 flange bolts. I think this whole thread is going nowhere and probably should be deleted.

I don't think the thread should be deleted. It is getting a bit off track, but some good discussion and info here.
It's got me looking up some of the products mentioned.

@crenwelge I looked at the flange bolts. It looks like it has a round head, how do you keep it from spinning when tightening it. Thank you all for all the great information and options.

Thanks,

Mark

Flange bolts have a hex or 12 point head.

https://www.imperialsupplies.com/browse/fasteners/cap-screws-bolts/flange-bolts

The bolt part of a crossmember repair kit is actually called a ribbed carriage bolt.

https://www.imperialsupplies.com/item/0009790

When attaching to an aluminum bottom rail a nylon washer is used. For steel against steel it is not necessary. The nut is actually a flange serrated self locking nut. All three pieces are ordered separately at Imperial. We use these bolt a lot because having two crossmember to bottom rivet broken is an out of service criterion. In fact we had a unit put out of service just two weeks ago for having two broken Huck bolts.

https://safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/query.a..._query_string=CRENWELGE%20OIL%20CO%20INC

Had the driver been doing his job on a pre trip inspection, we could have saved a $500 fine and points that raise our insurance.

I was out at my shop this afternoon and noticed my bin of crossmember bolts was looking almost empty . Imperial is out of stock at the moment, but Zoro which is also owned by WW Grainger has them cheaper and ships them in 7 days.

https://www.zoro.com/zoro-select-carriage-bolt-38-16x1-14l-pk100-5zmt4/i/G6027192/#specifications

I used flange bolts when I shortened the frame on my 630. Does away with washers, too.

Ed