Restoration Tip for transmission ID tag drive screws (rivets)

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69hurstolds

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And now you know...

Thinking about when it comes time to rebuild/restore the 85 442's transmission, I'm going to have to remove the original ID tag to keep it from getting hosed up. But I will need a new drive screw rivet to put back in its place. I'm thinking I'll need to tape up the face of the tag and carefully drill out the rivet head to remove the tag. Hopefully I can get it out without screwing something up.

Anyone ever replace them?

Amazingly, these screws are still available from GM. Who knew? GM p/n 8622361. They list for $7 and change from the dealer. Gee-zus!

Other fastener companies have them too. Although I'm not sure of the exact size.

Fastenal has a page of them here. Different sizes.

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Rktpwrd

Builder of Cool Shjt
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Those are actually a pretty commonly available rivet. We used to use them all the time to reattach ID tags to split case water pumps in industrial uses all the time. I couldn’t give you any usable information on sizes or distributors tho as I was never involved in ordering them.

I’m thinking you can definitely do better than $7 a piece tho, I would think there would be only a couple commonly used sizes. As for replacing them, if they’re not fully seated you might be able to get a chisel point in underneath it and try pounding it up and out. Chances are pretty good that you’re gonna jack up the tag that way tho.

If it were me, I would carefully grind the head off, remove the tag, then do whatever you can to get the stem out. They usually are stuck in pretty good tho, so almost certainly count on having to drill them out.
 

69hurstolds

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If I knew the exact size, I'd order them from Fastenal or I also seen stainless ones on fleabay. You can get a pack of 100 for the price of a single GM one. OTOH, how many times am I ever going to do this again? Probably never?

Of course if anyone has any extras of these in the proper size, I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today...wait...

I thought about masking everything off with a piece of aluminum sheet or something with the hole drilled in it to access the rivet to minimize the damage in case something went awry, but I was thinking maybe if I was careful, taking a Dremel tool with the cutoff wheel and cutting a slot in the head and use a flat blade screwdriver to try and "unscrew" it. Maybe. Or if that didn't work, use the slot to help center a drill bit to keep it from walking and fugging up the tag. Or hope it popped the head off at least, remove the tag unscathed, and then deal with the stub.

Never tried taking one of those things out. The main thing is, I know from experience if you get the trans casing cleaned, it comes back extremely clean. With no paint on the trans tag. Not the look I'd like to see for my plans.
 

pontiacgp

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Mar 31, 2006
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what about the chart in the link that gives you the measurements of the drive screws.

 
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69hurstolds

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what about the chart in the link that gives you the measurements of the drive screws.

Yeah, that could work. If I had the dimensions of the hole already. The Fastenal chart also shows the similar stuff. That was the point of not buying a box of stainless ones. I'm not sure of original rivet size.
 

pontiacgp

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Yeah, that could work. If I had the dimensions of the hole already. The Fastenal chart also shows the similar stuff. That was the point of not buying a box of stainless ones. I'm not sure of original rivet size.

I was thinking that the chart gives you the all the measurements so if you measure the head on the fastener on your tag the measurements for that head size should give you the measurement for the shank and hole size in the chart
 

69hurstolds

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But the same screw size may give you different lengths, so there's that. The most important part of this deal is that the hole size diameter and depth is a known entity. I don't know if a 35 year-old screw head correlates to that particular brand screw head.
If it was a standard size, it may work. But the head size probably isn't as important to me as the length and diameter of the business end.

Knowing me, it's a GM part, and this car is going to have GM parts on it where possible, so I'll probably just end up with one of the GM ones. I can get a discount, so I'm probably going to pay around $5 bucks for it anyway, but still. Quite a pinch for a little stupid 2 cent screw.
 

79 USA 1

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Sep 2, 2011
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For what it is worth small block Chevy's use the same style rivet to attach the heat deflector pan under the factory intake manifolds. We have removed them by carefully inserting a sharp chisel behind the rivet head and levering it up to remove it. The rivet can then be reused with a drop or two of red loctite.
Update: there is a guy in Texas selling 12 zinc plated rivets for the intake splash pan on e-bay for $9.95 and free shipping.
 
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