Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

All, I have my wing windows out and am working on replacing the rubber and window guide inserts. There are small rivets holding part of this together. I had planned on pop riveting all of this back together, but am pausing because a 1/8 pop river won't fit. As we, I am thinking that the pop river may interfere with the actual window action. Anybody done this before? Looking for suggestions. Thanks in advance. Steve

I did it on a 47 which is fairly similar in construction. I used flat head rivets where possible. In some places in the channel I resorted to short flat head screws and nuts because the diameter is a bit smaller than 1/8 rivets. Used flat head because the tapered bottom surface of the head can kind of work its way down into the soft rubber base holding the fuzz and get buried slightly below the surface so the window edge won't hit. Locknuts where there was room and locktite and regular nuts in a couple of limited clearance places. I used mostly 2-56 and 4-40 screws. 2-56 where they used 3/32 rivets and 4-40 where 1/8 was used.

Where I used rivets in the channel, with my rivet tool the nose wasn't small or long enough to get deep in the channel to push against the rivet without distorting the sides of the channel. I drilled a hole in a 1/4" diameter rod so it would slide over the rivet wire as a spacer and then the tool over that so the nose didn't need to go down in the channel. Don't remember the exact length but was just thick enough the nose would fit in the channel without touching the sides too hard but short enough the rivet wire could still be gripped by the tool.