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The rear swing arms on my car have the mount for the rubber bushings riveted to the arm. It is a pain in the neck to replace the bushings, since you need to bring the whole arm to the rubber workshop. I see some spare arms I keep have had the mount changed because the rivets are different and obviously where hammered with regular workshop tools (chisel and hammer).

I want to see if I can use bolts/pressure washers/nuts instead of rivets, perhaps adding a fourth one next to the middle one. I know I can re-rivet or weld it, but I'm looking for a way to easily remove the mount and the bushings for replacement. I know that it should be a precise, tight and solid joint...

Would that be ok?

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dlu
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Aram Alvarez
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1 Answers1

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Yes, you can use bolts instead of rivets. You probably don't need to use high grade bolts – the original rivets need to be soft enough that you can peen the end to secure them in place.

Besides cost, the big difference between a rivet (especially a shop installed rivet) and a bolt is that once installed the rivet is very unlikely to come loose.

The caveat here is that since you don't know why the designer decided to use rivets, you should assume that it was to ensure that the bolts couldn't back off. So, you'll want to be sure to use lock the nut on in a very reliable way. Locking compound or an oval nut would be one way, a tabbed (as in you bend it up to secure the nut) washer would be another reasonable option. Standard spring type lock washers are probably not dependable enough.

dlu
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