Question on Avanti fiberglass components.

[grobb284]

Front firewall of the fiberglass Avanti body on the stainless steel frame.

This is a closeup of the body mount at the firewall of the Avanti, on the stainless steel frame.

The rivets in question are circled in red. Are these rivets a structural part of the fiberglass mount, or were they just used to secure the fiberglass mount to the body until the resin cured? In other words, can these rivets now be removed with out any loss in structural integrity?

This is a closeup of the driver's side inner fender where it meets the radiator support.

The rivets in question are circled in red. Again, can these be removed without any loss of structural integrity?

Thanks in advance for the response.

Edited March 30, 2008 by grobb284

[davidjonh]

"The rivets in question are circled in red. Are these rivets a structural part of the fiberglass mount, or were they just used to secure the fiberglass mount to the body until the resin cured? In other words, can these rivets now be removed with out any loss in structural integrity?"

Your progress with the stainless frame and the Avanti is starting to look great. I don't really have a direct answer for you but in preparation for repairing my 85 I needed to replace the passenger side dash reinforcement and hold down, sort of like the ones you show. I contacted Dan Booth at Nostalgic Motor Cars and he was able to send me a new fiberglass piece along with the panel adhesive used to secure it. From his description of how to replace the fiberglass section it sounded like it was important to make sure I used the correct adhesive and did the job correctly. I would think he would know the answer to your question if anyone does. Even though I got the piece and the adhesive some time ago, I am just now about to replace it.

Last time I saw my frame, yesterday, it was in the air on a hoist, 90 degrees to the ground. I hope to have a rolling frame soon with the Corvette rear end installed.

Dave

[grobb284]

David,

That is good advice to contact him. He would know.

How about sending me some update photos on your project. Or better yet, post some here on the forum, I'm sure others are interested.

Do you still have your fuel tank, for those of us still using oil based propellants?

[davidjonh]

Yes I do have the gas tank and I would like to give it to a new home. I think I looked into shipping it before but can't exactly remember how to do it since it is a gas tank. I also have the original rear end I would like to give to a new home if anyone is interested.

I was just trying to upload a picture but since the single upload size is 500k I have a problem since all my photos are slightly larger that that. Any idea as to how I can make them smaller in size? I'm using a Mac so that might be an issue.

Dave

[grobb284]

I could use the Avanti tank.

Sorry can't help with the pictures, the only MAC I Know how to use has "BIG" in front of it.

Sorry for the terrible joke.

Looking forward to your photos.

Best regards,

Gene

[davidjonh]

Gene, your name is on the tank. How do I get it to you? I remember reading something about how to clean it out but not sure where I read it. I would assume that it would need to be shipped by truck, maybe yellow freight or ???

Getting back to the original issue about the rivets vs the adhesive for strength. Did you get an answer? I installed the fiberglass frame mounting piece today and some how things sort of got out of hand. I think it all turned out in the end okay but the adhesive set up a lot faster than when I did it the other day. I guess it was a lot warmer and I may have added too much hardener. I'm sort of wondering the same thing about the rivets but I plan to leave them anyway. Some how the passenger door actually works now and all I can figure is that the outer panels were sagging some and I had to put upward pressure on the outside bottom edge of the piece to get it to go back where the old one was, which was basically broken in half vertically.

Dave