How the heck to pull this rivet?

Hey guys,

I bought a used, mostly assembled wing and emp kit and have been slowly but surely inspecting it one piece at a time for build quality and conformity. Came across something today that I'm gonna have to ponder a little bit. I'm hoping somebody might have a technique that would help.

On one of the ailerons, the previous owner forgot to install the pop rivets on the back side of the counterbalance pipe common to the nose ribs. They match drilled the holes, but space is too tight to get a pop rivet tool in there, even if I remove the aileron hinge brackets. Likewise, I think that the angle is too great to pull it sideways with any confidence of getting it to set straight, especially on the inboard side.

Does anyone have a technique for pulling a pop rivet without a gun? I'm thinking about maybe experimenting with some sort of threaded mandrel, but haven't started experimenting yet and don't want to reinvent the wheel if somebody's already been there.

will try to attach my very first photo here to hopefully make this a little more clear

You might consider tapping the hole and installing a 6-32 machine screw?

Get yourself a swivel head hand riveter.

Cheers

Take off the bracket to give more room. Use a hand rivet puller with the swivel head if you can not get a standard one in position. If needed take a small piece of apex aluminum (trailing edge for RV-7,9 rudders or any RV-9 control surfaces) drill a hole in center of apex of pulled rivet mandrel diameter, place over mandrel with the thick part of apex to inside so that it angles your puller to outside. (Technique for RV-12 for rivets with difficult access as per build instructions.)

I've considered a machine screw, but it seems like a clunky solution. If I can't think of anything else, that will likely be my fallback.

Got a swivel head. it won't fit because the barrel is just as long as a non-swivel style. With the aileron bracket removed, the pull angle would still need to be about 30 degrees sideways. Will the wedge solution successfully pull that much out of plane?

my wedge tool will only move the puller head about 15 degrees off the vertical.

He doesn?t look like he?s debured any of the edges of those parts?

Close quarters pop rivet tool

Find a 12 builder with a close quarters pop rivet tool. No problem.

Try two pieces of AEX wedge, one on top of the other to increase the angle. If necessary, glue them together. Bend the rivet's mandrel so it comes out of the two wedge pieces at a 90-degree angle to the top surface of the top AEX wedge. As long as the wedge pieces are tight against the top of the rivet and the rivet puller is tight against the wedge pieces, I think it will work.

Cleaveland sells the tool that Larry mentions. http://www.cleavelandtool.com/Close-Quarter-Rivet-Pulling-Wedge/productinfo/5012/#.XY1Bwi2ZNE4 You could buy or borrow one, or make something similar by beveling a piece of scrap 6061 aluminum bar to the exact angle you need. https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/mepages/6061t6.php

Good luck!

TASEsq said:

He doesn?t look like he?s debured any of the edges of those parts?

Click to expand...

There are areas that could have been finessed a little more for sure, but none of them are sharp. Hard to tell in the picture, but it's no worse than most of the production aircraft I've worked with.

If you use a solid rivet, can you squeeze it?

By the way, good job, going through the plans and manual and double-checking things. You'll have a good safe airplane when it's all done.

Dave

Desert Rat said:

I've considered a machine screw, but it seems like a clunky solution. If I can't think of anything else, that will likely be my fallback.

Got a swivel head. it won't fit because the barrel is just as long as a non-swivel style. With the aileron bracket removed, the pull angle would still need to be about 30 degrees sideways. Will the wedge solution successfully pull that much out of plane?

Click to expand...

On the RV-10, those are fastened with a machine screw with nylon locknut.

Hey guys- Thought I'd circle back to this with the resolution.

Sterlon at Van's told me that he didn't see a problem with a screw & lock nut here, but before I did that, I thought I'd experiment a little and see just how "sideways" I could pull a LP4 rivet, since they're pretty soft.

I discovered that I was able to stack up 3 sections of trailing edge wedge and pre-bend a gradual enough arc on the rivet mandrel to get about a 40 degree pull angle on the LP4-3 that the print calls out here. I would have never thought I could pull a pop rivet at that severe an angle, but it worked.

Thanks for all the suggestions.