rear wheel cover rivets

Hi Anna,

Yes the rivets used are indeed diamond hard and will not drill out as some believe.

The solution is to use some tiny stainless steel self tapping screws. Once you have the self tappers you are going to use it's easy to select the correct drill bit size a few thou smaller than the thread size.

Then, drill your new hole to one side of the snapped off rivet and repeat for all the other rivets remembering to drill your new holes all the same (left or right) of the rivets. It helps to place the cover in position and rotate it slightly to have a look at the positioning.

Mount your cover - it will have rotated very slightly off the centres of the three wheel nuts but thankfully you will still be able to get a socket or box spanner in there to undo them. Finally fit the three rubber grommets and job done.

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Hi,

Several years ago i had this problem with the original rivets, they are exceptionally hard and have a rifled shank and are hammered home. Had a specialist firm remove the broken bits using a spark erosion technique, not a cheap solution. The cleared holes were a little oversize for the stainless screws now used for retaining the cover disc, so mechanicaly rather than thermaly filled the holes with solder that i had to hand and drilled a small pilot hole to take the screws. Could have turned a piece of ali rod to drive in but did not have a lathe to hand.

Some years back I built a Stuart 10 V model steam engine from their truly excellent casting sets.

Hard for me to admit this but In my clumsy way I broke off a Small BA tap in the cast iron base . I was able grind it out with several ( very expensive IIRC ) tiny diamond dental burrs - I found them on the Internet from a dealer 3000miles away in California and ordered them up . They were drop shipped from the wholesalers 30 minutes from my home ! Perhaps this technique will work on the drive rivets/ drum as well - Any how I have the drum cover replacement task ahead of me now on my current Commando project so I may have to take advantage of the tips I've read on this thread .

Cheers - Richard

Not Norton but I had exactly the same problem with a Triumph 500 timing cover plate. I ended up sticking it on with RTV (well it was only a Triumph......)