Back seat Panel

The next part of the build was to put in the large panel that sits behind the seats. We used the same technique as the foot well panels in terms of setting up and riveting.

Things you may need for this job -

A drill
Measuring tools
Marker pen
Ruler
Hand clamps
Rivet gun
Cleco Inserter tool
Files
Nibbler tool (If needed)
Bench saw/ Bandsaw
Soldering iron
Portable sanding belt

A sharp (preferably new) 3mm Drill bit
3mm rivets
Cleco clips/clamps
Polyurethane sealant (Available form GBS)
Wood

We learned a few valuable lessons from riveting our first two panels on. One of them was not to rivet over the protective film covering the aluminum. The reason behind this is because the film gets trapped under the rivet and is hard to peal away when you want to take the film off. To avoid this problem we used a soldering iron and a ruler to burn a thin line through the plastic about half an inch either side of the rivet hole. This was much better than using a blade to cut through it and potentially leave scratch marks.

A set distance was measured from each end and a rivets where placed accordingly. The same distance was then used to place the next and the next rivets all the way along the sheet of ally.

Upon setting the panel in place we noticed that the sheet of ally was sitting at an angle to the bar that runs across the top of the chassis. We investigated this matter further and found out that if we riveted the sheet to the chassis the ally would distort and create a pressed effect almost like the look of a press studded sofa, which looks messy and unprofessional. We measured the angle of the gap and cut a piece of wood to this degree and length. It was then stuck to the top bar using the black poly sealant stuff. Once dry the wood was sanded using a sanding belt to remove any sharp edges and to make it smooth.

The ally was then placed back into position to see how it now sat. This time round it sat beautifully with no bend or play when it was pushed up tight against the chassis. After seeing how well this technique worked we used it to create 4 more pieces to fill in angled gaps between the two bars that run from the corners to the cross section that supports the top of the tunnel and the bottom of the rear floor pan.

Finally the pieces were sprayed with a black paint to protect them.

The aluminum was marked (for rivets) and placed back onto the chassis ready to be finally secured. We riveted across the top piece, along the diagonal bars, across the short middle bars, down the sides and along the bottom. We didn't rivet the round supporting bars because it would be fairly hard to get a rivet in the center without slipping to the slide. We added some poly sealant to the bar once it was riveted to double secure it.

Made an oopsy, the wood slipped down when drilling holes so had to re-drill. As you can see the angle inst huge but by using this spacer we avoided horrible warps in the metal like we have seen with other builds.  

 

Final rivets going in the sheet, looking good, metal looking as straight as an arrow!