rub rails again

[djw]

I'm in the process of pulling my K rub rails. Of course about half the nutserts are loose enough to spin rather than release the bolt.

I'd like to figure out a way to salvage the original rails since they appear to be in pretty nice shape, clear oak, once the old paint comes off. I might be able to get at the back side on the rear doors if the door panel comes off, not sure since I haven't pulled it yet, but the others no way.

I've thought of:

a) drilling off the heads of the stuck bolts or
b) possibly finding the exact hole saw to (if such a thing exists) to core out the rail then plug it later.

Any other suggestions that don't involve sacrificing these rails if I don't really have to?

thanks.

[edzz]

Drill the heads off, start with a 1/8 inch drill bit than move up to a larger drill bit. Step up to the screws shank size.

If you have problems with the drill spinning the screws use a thin wedge inserted between the truck body and the rail, insert from below the rail to prevent marring the wood where it would be seen.

Remember to leave the screws that you can unscrew in place until you are done drilling screw heads off to prevent the rail from dropping off unexpectedly.

Try not to drill deeper than necessary to pop the head off.

Once the heads are off and the rail is removed you should be able to use two pair of vice grips one pair to grip the rivnut and the other pair to turn the screw shank.

After the screws have been removed you can drill out the rivnuts, only drill deep enough to pop the rivnut heads off, punch the remainder of the rivnut into the cavity and forget about it should become encapsulated in the waxoyl.

Can’t begin to tell you how many fasteners I drilled out in my years at Boeing and Lockheed.

[djw]

Drilled out all the bad bolts and rivnuts or nutserts (whatever name's preferred) and refinished all the rails over the last day or two. Thanks for the tips.

I'll keep the wood rails for now since they are ok, and temporarily put the rails back on until I get a bunch of the proper rivnuts and tool.

Since about half of the M6 rivnuts are still good, the drilled out ones are temporarily on with M5 Well-nuts and SS bolts, which fit exactly into the existing M6 riv-nut sized hole. I had a bunch of these well-nuts in bike spares and they are a good temporary, or maybe even more than temporary, fix if anyone decides to forgo immediate installation of the proper rivnut, and they require no tool to set them.

[djw]

The following bits I used to replace rivnuts on my 710K (Austrian), and they pretty much match up to the hardware size previously installed.

I don't think the original rivnuts are stainless steel (looks to be aluminum to me), but I put stainless steel hardware to replace the originals.

McMaster Carr:
97467A666 18-8 Stainless Steel Heavy-Duty Rivet Nut, M6 X 1.00 Internal Thread (9mm OD)
93475A270 18-8 Stainless Steel Flat Washer, Metric DIN 125 M8 Screw Size, 16MM OD
92000A438 18-8 Stainless Steel Metric Pan Head Phillips Machine Screw, M6 Size, 30MM Length, 1MM Pitch

Rivet Nut Tool (6mm) about $18

The tool works great to set rivnuts, less than 1 minute per rivnut. Small enough to fit even a trail kit, does other size rivnuts too.