I've got a 69 convert. I'm starting to restore and it has the common rivet pops on the front clip from the headlight header bar. Can anyone give me some advise on the best way to fix this? What's the easiest way to take the header out, can i replace the rivets, do I just sand the fiberglass down where the rivets popped it up? I've tried finding old posts on this with no luck. Thanks

 

The header/headlamp reinforcement is not easy to remove and the headlamps will need to come out of the car to do this.

What ever you do and/or what ever you hear. . . Do not drill out the pops in the fiberglass and fill them as a repair! You will never be able to hide this repair once the car is painted. Do not grind the outside of the fiberglass panel either, this will just make it thin and the pop will show up again in a year or two. If you are really intent on fixing this correctly, you will need to do it one time and correctly.

The header bar is glued to the upper surround panel and once you get to it, you will have to cut it loose.

The problem is the bonding strip on top of the header bar is held in place with aluminum rivets. When these rivets begin to oxidize they swell and create the “pop” effect on the front end of the car.

I’ve seen post before claiming that the rivets can drilled out from the top and then hide the pops with filling! In over thirty years of these cars, I’ve never had a painter, body man or seen any other shop be able to hide a hole in the top of a fiberglass panel. You might hide it for six months or a year, but it will come back. The expansion ratio of the replacement material will be different than that of the original fiberglass. When this happens, you will eventually see the repaired area and on the nose of the car this is just as ugly as the pops. (I'm sure the person that thinks this will chime in too!)

I will post a picture for you in a minute to show you what you are getting in to!

 

You will need to remove the headlamps from the car and then attack the header reinforcement outlined in the red on the picture.

Not an easy job, but well worth the time to do in the correct manner if you are keeping the car.

Willcox Inc.

 

I too am interested in fixing the "rivet bumps" correctly.
Once the header bar is seperated and obviously the rivets drilled out, what is the correct way to bond the header bar in and fill the rivet holes?
Also should I replace the rivets or leave them out?
TIA
Tim

 

Thanks for the help! Will I need to buy a new header panel or can I sandblast the one I have? What other parts will I need to buy considering I don't break anything removing it? Thanks

 

I used my grinder and ground the rivet heads down to clean metal, then I used Lord Fusor 147 to reattach the header bar.

Steve

 

Should be able to reuse your header bar. No other parts if you don't tear anything up, Lord Fusor 147 is the adhesive I use.

You may tear up the bonding strips riveted to the header bar, if so, you'll need new bonding strips and rivets.

Steve

 

You should be able to re-use the header bar, “baring” (my attempt at a joke) it’s nut rusted to bad.

You can use just about any type of bonding adhesive to re-attach the header to the bonding strip and the strip to the header.

You can leave out the rivets; I would personally put new rivets in the car before bonding it to the car again.

You may need a new bonding strip, #13 in the picture and that will depend on how bad you tear it up getting it off.

Once you remove the header you will still see some of the bump’s created by the rivets. Even when the bar is removed, you will still see some of them just from years of pushing upward. They should lay down some and I would only sand these down after I had the new header in place.

Ipmtim, you should not have any holes to fill by removing the header bar from the car.

 

Normally you do NOT need to go through all of what Wilcox has described. I wrote how the job could easily be accomplished in most cases last year when this was discussed. "Not" every job has to be repaired there way and too such extremes.

 

Not all header bars are created equal. There isn't a replacement bar that is correct for my 70, and your 69 may use the same bar as my 70. If you can refurbish yours, that's the way to go. IMO

 

Thanks guys, I'm not at this part yet but it does clear up the grey area in my brain on this.
Tim