Hood Strut Rivet Install Fail

The rivets that come with your kit made me feel incredibly weak hahahaha! Definitely not the "cheapest rivets available", not even close.

Your reply from a customer service point of view is outstanding btw.

 

Thanks! BTW, here is how these rivets look when popped - you can see how large the bulb is:

 

Right, I wasn't too clear. I didn't mean to drill 4 new holes but to just enlarge the existing rivet holes enough for the nutserts to fit.

 

Not saying this is what happened, its happened to me a few times. Sometimes on a larger diameter rivets, the increased squeeze force needed to install it causes you to pull the rivet out enough (Red Line) so it doesn't clamp where it should (Green Line). Usually when you try to squeeze hard two handed, the rivet tool is cocked pulls the rivet/bracket out enough to cause something like this.

For larger rivets and stainless rivets, I like the "A" shaped two handle rivet guns.



Actually, I think you can see the paint transfer on the rivet showing it was trying to clamp on my red line in your photos.

 

Stock setup is fine for most. Some of us enjoy the convenience and drilling a bunch of small holes is nothing compared some of the other mods that we're doing.
Whats gonna happen when the shocks on your truck is blown after several years of usage? Replace.

 

Hell I'll say it: Using the larger two handled tool is plain ass fun.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

SpikerEng reached out to me as you saw and I am gonna try the rivnuts with a new bracket. Thanks for the video on that WebberLander.

To address a few things, the hole was definitely 3/16ths and drilled straight through so the hole was not too big.

I made sure the rivet gun was bracket was flush against the body and the rivet gun was as flush against the rivet head as it could be by pressing down on the top of the rivet gun as I squeezed down to get the initial grab and tension before going ham with two hands.

I think the main issue was that (on the 2015 at least) the hole to get the bracket as far to the outside as it could be does not leave a lot of room for a rivet gun. So the rivet gun, while being as flush as possible, had about a 5-10 degree tilt. This combined with a potentially cheap rivet gun (I could bend the handles together till they were touching at the tips without it moving the rivet stud at all as far as I could tell) were what did me in.

Too true... glad it seems like I have some options to still get this done the right way.

 

You may be on to something - I did have a customer whose rivet gun had an unusually wide tip that was too wide fit properly inside the fender. He ended up getting a different gun. I can see that if trying to use such a gun, the tip will not seat properly against the bracket, causing the rivet to tilt and possibly pull through.

Your plan for the rivnuts is a good one in this situation.

I'm sending you out a replacement lower bracket tonight .

 

Man oh man am I glad I ran into this thread. About to try and install this mod tomorrow and man I’ve been a little nervous about it. My luck is not fortunate on such things. After hearing they are tough with a normal rivet gun. I went to harbor freight and picked up their heavier duty one below. Man I hope this works out.

 

Dang, they're talking about barley enough room to get a regular pop rivet gun in there, How the heck can this one ever fit? but good luck anyway.

 

That rivet gun is 17.5" long, and may be a bit too long to fit under the hood. If that's the case, you can temporarily lift the hood higher to get the needed clearance, then after riveting the hood brackets in place, lower the hood to the desired position before drilling the hood bracket holes. Timmy the Toolman used a 13" straight rivet gun in the 1st Gen Tacoma installation video, and it looked like he had plenty of room:


The one thing to watch out for is that in the 2nd Gen, there is limited room between the rivet and the inner edge of the fender, as shown below. So a rivet gun with a very large diameter nose piece may not fit well, which I think is what happened in the OP's case. If that happens, you could loosen the fender upper bolts and push the fender slightly out temporarily; or look for a gun with a smaller nose piece diameter.



No matter, what, don't be afraid of the rivets! As long as you can get the gun to be tight against the bracket, and not cocked, you should be fine. Go slow, and if something doesn't feel or look right, stop, and ask your question here. Good luck!

 

"years ago" hello duh! Technology,new improved,so go ahead and use your broomstick or equivalent to hold it up.Now that's completely stupid!

 

No need to panic. Get the body smoothed out and like someone has mentioned just some rivnuts. You can even use the same holes as they will probably need to be slightly bigger to except the rivnut.

 

I have this one too, but everyone kept saying they were too hard to get them done with smaller guns. I have a very small Arrow one like this. I just keep hearing many opinions and don’t know which one to do or trust! It makes u question things. Hell maybe I should just not do this mod

 

Practice on something you don't care about.

 

How do u practice riveting a hood strut when u only have the hood struts and included equipment? Lol.

 

It's not that hard to pop the rivets, almost any gun will work. The one above will work too, my only concern is the somewhat large diameter nose. I think
something like this may be better:

But again, you don't need to overthink it. Locate the brackets, drill the holes, then try to get the rivet gun in place, nice and square. If either one works, you're good to go! If both are too wide, you can loosen the fender bolts to move the fender out slightly, or get a gun like the one above. Just take it one step at a time.

 

Ok maybe I’m not seeing something right but the instructions in the written manual and the website do not list the location of where the brackets along the fender go. No measurements or anything. I swear I’m not trying to be difficult, I’m just trying to be safe with the install and feel I am taking as much care doing preparation as I possibly can.

 

Got em installed. For anyone with a 2nd gen. @SpikerEng is right, you will have to either have a small enough head of the rivet gun to clear the fender bottom bracket or do what I did. I loosened the brackets holding in the fender and my dad pulled them back some while I gave the rivet gun hell to get these installed! It was a JOB. Also, the instruction manual does not have great pics. Taco Twonz’ video was the best for me. I just went with the stock height for the struts as it was easiest, and that’s high enough for me. The video by that Timmy guy is not very accurate and he doesn’t give good reference points for the brackets like Taco Twonz does. For me, a video is worth a thousand pictures. Either way. They are installed without incident and they are working and boy is that hood light now! I wasn’t able to get the spiker engineering logos facing outwards but oh wells. And I also kinda didn’t apply the touch up paint on the first bracket but oh wells. Even when I applied it I’m not sure I let it dry much. Showing pictures that hopefully show u some location points if you have a 2nd gen

 

Congrats, and thanks for the pics! Always great to see a successful father/son project .