This is an odd (and unfortunate) issue. I just finished my tanks and they're leak-free. Great. While cleaning off all the soapy water, I noticed something. Two rivet heads were chipped.
If I had noticed this before the tanks were closed up, I would have replaced them without hesitation. But the tanks are closed (and did I mention leak-free?) So I then looked at every rivet in both tanks and found 7 others. The following pictures show the position of each chipped rivet head that I found.
All but one is on the top and most interesting I think is the location of the left-most chipped rivet on the right tank. This rivet is in the root-rib and was squeezed. I can almost believe my bucking technique could be so bad as to cause these chips. But how can they happen on a squeezed rivet (hand squeezer)?
I really, really want to avoid putting a bunch of holes in the baffles unless absolutely necessary - I also want to avoid foreign matter from drilled out rivets tumbling around in the tank looking for a fuel-line to plug up. I'm awaiting a response from Van's on the issue. But some secondary questions are what would cause a rivet to chip in this way? Can it be a bad batch of rivets? Should I be concerned about other rivets that haven't chipped (yet)?
Has anyone else seen something like this?
If I had noticed this before the tanks were closed up, I would have replaced them without hesitation. But the tanks are closed (and did I mention leak-free?) So I then looked at every rivet in both tanks and found 7 others. The following pictures show the position of each chipped rivet head that I found.
All but one is on the top and most interesting I think is the location of the left-most chipped rivet on the right tank. This rivet is in the root-rib and was squeezed. I can almost believe my bucking technique could be so bad as to cause these chips. But how can they happen on a squeezed rivet (hand squeezer)?
I really, really want to avoid putting a bunch of holes in the baffles unless absolutely necessary - I also want to avoid foreign matter from drilled out rivets tumbling around in the tank looking for a fuel-line to plug up. I'm awaiting a response from Van's on the issue. But some secondary questions are what would cause a rivet to chip in this way? Can it be a bad batch of rivets? Should I be concerned about other rivets that haven't chipped (yet)?
Has anyone else seen something like this?