I am getting ready to take the car to get it media blasted. Is it best to remove the tags by drilling out the rivets or should I leave them on the car and somehow mask the tags with duct tape?

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If I drill them out how hard is it to find the correct rivets to put them back on?

If it matters, this is for a 1973 914 GT conversion with a six in it so it won’t be completely original.

Jeff B

Drill them. They will be destroyed otherwise. Can't replace them but you can put them back on.

I'd drill them out. rivets are rivets so you won't lose any originality.

Might want to check local regulations, people have been busted for removing and replacing their own VINs without the proper "permissions" to do so.

Then that will make it an outlaw 914 for sure!

Jeff B

............silicone a a blank steel plate of same size. Easy to remove after blasting.

Drill them out. VIN is stamped on the right inner fender. These are additional plates. Just be sure to put them back on before you take the car out in traffic again.

Very unlikely anyone (even here !) is ever going to notice the wrong rivets.
You have to go to the Corvette world for that shit.
Drill away !

I use a couple of layers of duck tape and it was fine

Quite possibly different rules in Ohio. Here in California, if you're caught drilling out the rivets on the windshield VIN tag it can go very badly for you. I got hassled about this from the Orange County Auto Theft Task Force in So. California. I would check with the Ohio State Police before you do anything. Here in Ca. the DMV don't know squat. The CHP were, however, most helpful. My advice would be to check with the authorities (I know, can be a PITA), then do what you think is right for you. Or what you think you can get away with.

This works for bike frames. Might be helpful to you. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Mas...ve-Sandblastin/

I'd drill them out, and blast it. Who is going to stop you and ask you what you're doing with a car they know very little about?

100%

too. They look like standard aluminum rivets, available everywhere.

I bought some of special rivets from Sierra Madre last month ... the kind that Porsche used to attach the paint-code tags in the door jambs on the SWB 911/912 series cars.

There is a special green color masking tape used for media blasting. We u to use it on all kinds of parts needing media blast. Forgot its true name is, but I'll give my buddy a call tomorrow and find out. This stuff works great.