I bought a set of the plastic expanding "push" rivets from 914rubber - and they're a bit of a nightmare TBH. Their pins are wayyy too tight as they come, and my install ratio keep decreasing. Pins will not turn by hand or otherwise, and mostly just end up breaking when trying to tap them in. Anyone got suggestions for working with these?

.

Try Grainger Supply for black plastic rivets.

Thx for the warning. I bought a set and if the 1st one gives me a difficult time I'll send the lot back.

Just drill them clear

A little disturbing from my viewpoint.

I have a set coming...

I'll report what I find.

Maybe a bit of heat could help?

I'm guessing you tried lubricants?

Super clean the holes out.?

I recently bought a set from 914 and they were very soft plastic and there was no way I could insert them. Found some in McMaster that will work but will require slightly larger holes.

The McMaster ones are very close dimensionally and in appearance to the original just slighty larger.

just use metal rivets, many sizes and also in black.

Mark is going to want to know about this.

Here’s what I do :
clip the rod very close to the rivet head.
Trim the cut end just a bit with a utility knife.
Insert the rivet into the whole.
Slip the trimmed end of the rod into the rivet head hole.
Tap the rod into the rivet head.

A bit of a work-around, but works!

But cleaned the hole by hand with a small drill bit in a pin vise, then insert into rivet and tap down.

I insert the plastic rivet, holding the pin with some small needle nose pliers, then gently tap with a tiny hammer to get them started / broken free without bending the pins

I could get the rivets in the holes just fine, the soft flimsy pins though will mostly give before they'd move and not move at all. They're too tight leaving you with a destroyed rivet. And that's tapping very gently with a smallish cobbler's hammer (learned after the first one that soft coaxing would be needed). I was successful on two of the six that I tried. Hopefully you guys have better luck!



I'm gonna look over there - Thanks!

Thanks SB, but I'm afraid that would be impossible with the set I have, as getting the pin out in the first place would destroy one or both parts of the rivet.

.

The way to install these is not intuitive.
Snap off the pun, fluo it over and push it into the rivet section.
Its pretty easy if you do it this way. I have never been able to tap it straight in, its allways slighty off, starting it manually is the only way to go..

Where's autocorrect when you need it? Gotta ask as my 914R rivets have been waiting for my threshold trim to arrive. Are you saying insert the pins into the bottom of the rivet before then inserting the rivet into the hole? (assumed that you insert far enough so some sticks out the top and then will be tapped down for final fitment?

the aftermarket ones are too big, only the factory ones fit, NO ONE wants to enlarge the holes these days anyway. buy factory rivets tear off the attached peg, put the rivet in the hole, open the rivet a bit to accept the peg and then tap home with a flat body hammer

Are the rivets metric? I never checked. Are they available anywhere? I ran into this with some sheet metals screws. Never occurred to me to look for metric ones.

What color should they be. Clear plastic or black?

Why would a German car have non-metric fasteners?

Picture for color refrence only.
Sourced from early cars for years.
Not clear, not white either.
Black came '73 ?

Post war many items were shared. I had a Land Rover that had 3 different thread types. Very time consuming to figure out.

But probably my UScentric way of thinking. I have to retrain from time to time.

I think the only non-metric stuff in a Porsche or VW are the seat belt bolts.