Making Bolts look like rivets.
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1/2/2006 My friend Scott Miller, from Frazier park came and inspected my jeep a few weeks back. He noticed my front horns were replaced because I had bolts holding the shock absorber holders and grill holders. He said I should try and get these to look like rivets. Ren's site used socket nuts, but I could find any with rounded tops like Ren suggested. So I found 5/16x3/4 in to be the closest to the rivet sizes.
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1/2/2006 I replaced each with the rounded bolt and lock washer on the bottom side and tightened.
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1/2/2006 When replacing the bolt on the inside of the frame I found it difficult to use one finger to align the lock washer/nut and bolt. I ended up taping the two together so I could use a finger to line up and tighten.
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1/2/2006 All the bolts installed and tighted, now I need to pull the mig welder out and fill each of the bolts with a pool of steel and then grind into shape.
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1/2/2006 I filled the first bolt, making sure my heat and speed were correct. Once I did that, I zapped all of them.
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1/2/2006 I filled the rest on the driver side and inspected. The fill looks pretty good, so I went over to the passenger side and did the same.
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1/2/2006 I used my grinder with grinding disk to smooth out the top, then slapped on a Flap disk (70 grit) and finished the smoothing out. I took a tack rag (Xylene/water) and wiped down the welded areas prepping for paint. I then touched it up. Looks pretty good.
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1/2/2006 Here is a close up of the driverside after I touched up with paint.
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1/2/2006 A little zoom out gives the full driver side. Looks pretty good, and is about the same size as the original rivets.
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1/2/2006 Here is a picture from the top view after the paint dried. Looks pretty good.
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