Plastic Rivet Installation

[Bob Jones]

Would someone please share the secrets of installing the plastic rivets that are used on the top of the rocker panels, threshold plates and the late model bumpers? Do they require a special tool???

Thanks for any help.

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[JP Noonan]

I fthey are the type I'm thinking about you place the rivet in the hole (the side with the larger diameter) and then tap the smaller diameter "post" into the rivet. This causes the larger diameter post to expand. I've actually been able to reuse these rivets sometimes, either push the small post back out from behind the rivet, or push the small post all the way through (of coarse teh trick is not to lose the small post on the ground) and pull the rivet out with a knife.

[Jim Philpot]

In theory, the rivet is molded so that the small pin breaks away from the main body of the rivet when a force is applied to the end of the pin and the pin is simply pushed into the hole in the rivet, expanding the "fingers" of the rivet and locking it in place. When I installed the plates on my car about a year ago, however I found that the pins were not rigid enough to withstand this force without bending. Either the present molder has inferior tooling, or the tooling has worn to the extent that the original breakaway feature between the two parts no longer works as it should. I ended up actually having to separate the pin from the body, and by holding the pin with a small pair of smooth jaw pliers, I was able to just start the pin into the hole.I then inserted the rivet into the hole in the plate and the door sill metal, and pushed the pin home, securing the assembly.

BTW---if you want to have black rivets, which are no longer available, get some black Rit fabric dye, make up a very concentrated mixture of dye and water and let the rivets soak overnight in this concentrate. The plastic (most likely nylon)
will absorb the dye and you'll have rivets that are almost black, as they are supposed to be for black plastic threshold plates.