jstantherprsn

It was suggested that instead of welding patch panels, I should just fab some patch panels and rivet them in place. I've never dealt with pop rivets and all. My experience with them has been more of an observation of the quality of work. A friend of mine had an old ******* and paid for panels to be welded and a week after the job was done, pop rivets were breaking thru the bondo and primer. They had put an assload of bondo on the *****’s and effectively totaled it. He took them to small claims and got back his money (2 years later) and money for the totaling of the *****’s.

I read somewhere that after you apply the rivet you should hammer them down to flatten them to avoid using a lot of bondo. I recall there are pliars you can get that will bend metal in so you can flush mount the patch and the old metal.

Can anyone provide a resource/link on how to best do repairs with rivets. I have some underbody stuff that isn’t structural that I want to repair and figure rivets is the best way.

My process:

Use some degreaser to remove the rubber under body around the rusted area

Cut out the rust and go a half in into new metal

Paint stop rust on the inside and outside of the old metal

Then fab and cut my patch panel maybe even use pliers (don’t recall there name) to bend and create bevels to align the new metal flush.

Apply some seam sealant around the overlapping areas

Rivet, Paint, Respray the area with new underbody rubber coat from a spray can.

Anyone know what gauge sheet metal I should have on hand for a 93 xj? I’m trying to eliminating cutting a section out and then driving to home depot, etc . to get new sheet metal. I rather have everything there. I tried quadratec to find out the gauge of their patch panels but all they could tell me is they are the same size as the original metal which didn’t help.

All your comments/responses and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

RENIXBEAST

Welding is obviously better and stronger. When I got my xj the pass. side floor was shot. I made my own panels and used rivets, It's still holding strong a year later. I have a welder now so this spring I'm welding new panels in. I say if rivets is your only option then go for it, it will last a while. Your process is dead on, I just wouldn't worry about trying to hide the rivets if they are under your jeep then who's gonna see them??

jstantherprsn

I was looking around at welders. My dad is a structural welder and he said mig wouldn't be hard to learn. However he doesn't deal with mig. I was told to check out the harbor freight store they have warranties. I went and they had some lincoln stuff but what I saw was really low end. The only thing that you could adjust was the feed speed. They were all no-air mig. I thought I needed something to adjust the speed and the power.

I recall reading someone said get one of those flux core no air migs. But get one that has an air upgrade (for a tiny bottle). Any idea where I should look. I was looking for something I can plug in a 15 or 20A socket. I don't think I'll ever need to do anything greater than an 1/8" maybe I'm wrong.