Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Pop rivit issues

On the lower edge of the body, Morgan used what are called pop rivets here in the US to attach the the lower edge of the body work to the frame. These rivits start at about the rear edge of the heat shield and run clear to the front of the car. On my car, these are unpainted.
I had the frame replaced in early 2015 and began to notice that every couple of months, the head would be missing from one or more rivits. I would drill them out and replace them and be down the road. I have probably replaced all of them at one time or another and have just returned from the garage after replacing 5 of them (having a beer on the porch).
My question is: Do any of the rest of you have this issue? Were the original rivits some sort of magic rivit that we don’t have here in the states? My rivits are from a company called “Aircraft Spruce” and are used on aircraft so I’m thinking they should be adequate. Any ideas or thoughts?

My car is 2012 and i have recently noticed a couple of rivets missing. So not sure if were ever there or not, they are at the very front.

What size rivet have you used to replace?

Not heard of so many or so often the need to replace, but again thats a small sample of cars in NZ

Use rivet pop stainless steel diameter 5 mm / 18 mm length, do not forget washer fiber between rivet and bodywork, the same washers as for the tenons of the tonneu cover

WASHER FIBRE M5x10x

N°5

My car is 2012 and I also had problems with the aluminium rivets coming loose. I spoke to the factory about this and they sent me some 16.5mm stainless steel ones to replace them.

I found that the three rearmost rivets on each side do need to be at least 16.5mm long as they hold the body to the chassis rail. The rivets forward of these should be 9.3mm. That's on my car anyway - yours may be different!

The stainless rivets are hard to fit and you will need a long handled heavy duty tool such as this. I also placed a wavey spring washer under each rivet head to take up any slight movement in the future.

GESIPA HN2

Thank you all for the input. The shop that did the frame swap had done several and I followed their lead on rivits. I have been using 3/16th by 1/2 inch aluminum
rivits with no fiber washers. I will track down some stainless pop rivits and the proper washer and hope this exercise becomes a distant memory. The wavey spring washer sounds good also.

Is there any reason not to use a nut & bolt instead?