More Soft Rivets???

[cln1owner]

I did a search and came up with this thread,
http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...ad.php?t=23674, which did affect me. I ended up having two 4-5 bags that were indeed soft rivets. I got replacements and have since thrown the soft ones out...

The reason for this post is that I've run across some more soft rivets, I think. These are a little different. The following picture is from the Vans' Service Letter concerning the 4-5 soft rivets.

You'll notice that the bad ones are indeed labeled 01DC and have NO dimple.

The following is a photo of the rivets I've run across.

Notice that these are also labeled 01DC, however there is a small dimple on these rivets.

It's not as large as the dimple on an obvious AN rivets (next photo).


So, now, my question is, are the rivets labeled 01DC with the small (very small) dimple structural? I'm assuming that the 01DC is to identify the manufacturer. Still, my instinct tells me NO, and I'm treating them as such.

The rivets I've found are 4-6 and 4-9 rivets. The 4-6 shipped with either the wing or the tail kit, I haven't dug that deep yet, but I know it wasn't the fuselage kit. The 4-9 rivets were in a bag that shipped with the fuse.

If someone who has been through this, has a definitive answer, and they turn out to be structural... great. If not, then no big deal. I will be going over the wings and tail looking at every countersunk AD4 rivet. There isn't many.

I'm just curious at this point, and will probably end up calling Vans on Monday. I'll post the answer if nobody gets to it first.

Moral of the story: If you're a new builder, like me, make it a habit to quickly double check.

[AntiGravity]

Originally Posted by cln1owner

The rivets I've found are 4-6 and 4-9 rivets.

Originally Posted by cln1owner

Moral of the story: If you're a new builder, like me, make it a habit to quickly double check.

Not only if you're a new builder, but also when someone else is driving and you are inside the fuse with no visibility of the rivet head. While riveting the top skin recently iIt didn't occur to me some some time why some of the rivets drove way too quickly and easily and others took the 'normal' time. Oh, I realised of course that they were softer than 'normal' but the significance didn't occur to me until a few days later (still working the right-side of the longerons). Yep, had to remove and replace about 27 non-structural rivets from the left side .

I then proceeded with a full inspection of all other AN426 rivets on the entire fuse (will also re-check the wings when they come out of storage). No other soft rivets on the fuse (luckily), but definitely something to watch for. It was a little irritating. I think those soft rivets got supplied with the fuse kit. They were -6's too.

[airguy]

I must have missed the original posting of this - my wing kit was delivered last week, I'll check my rivets this evening.

[az_gila]

Interestingly enough, there is only a maximum size (0.030) on the dimple dimension, and no minimum.

The small dimple ones are most likely OK since they do meet the specification visually... but a quick squeeze with a hand squeezer will soon see if they are "A" rivets and not "AD" rivets.

The spec. is here....

http://www.av8design.com/Hardware/MS20426.pdf

gil A