# Heater Control Full Disassembly???



## Sick467 (Oct 29, 2019)

Before I take a drill to the rivet-like fasteners on the backside of my '67 heater control panel to get to the lens for freshening up...anybody disassemble one of these and put it back together successfully? My current plan would be to gently drill out the rivet-like fasteners to get to the lens and then use dabs of JB Weld to put it back together.










I intend to wash and lightly polish the plastic lens and, more importantly, I'd like to strip the glue and paint from the front of the pot metal piece without ruining the lens with thinner and such.


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## Sixty7GTO (May 4, 2017)

I'm glad you started this post. I've already drilled out the rivets to get at the lens and the blue tint plastic. If you do take yours apart you see the blue-tinted plastic will be distorted. You may want to replace them. The distortion is caused by the heat of the light bulbs. Then you start thinking of LEDs for lumination. Then you start thinking do they make LEDs that are dimmable? Now you see how one thing can lead to another. In answer to your question I was thinking of a flat-headed Philips screw countersunk from the face side and nut and lock washer on the back side or maybe a nylock nut. The wood grain installed on the face will cover the screw heads. I will be watching this post also.


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## Sick467 (Oct 29, 2019)

It would appear that the rivets can be drilled without drilling all the way through the base/face plate, is that the case? I am thinking that the proper sized drill bit would take out enough of the mushroomed part of the connection (shown with the red circle in the photo) to allow the back housing to be removed. If this can be done, there might be enough of the hollow rivet body remaining to get a shortened fat screw to take hold and re-fasten the back housing to the base from the backside. Just spit balling here before I start down the path.










Sixty7, your idea for countersinking flat head machine screws should work well too, so long as the nuts do not interfere with the rest of the assembly in the back. I'll look at that tonight. Share your process up to this point, with pics if you care to.


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## armyadarkness (Dec 7, 2020)

Once I drilled out the rivets, I would simply use caulk to hold it back together. That way it could easily be popped back apart if you needed to


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## gto4ben (May 27, 2018)

The holes are approximately 0.128" dia. or a #30 bit. This is perfect for a M4 x 0.7 tap. I bought a kit from eBay that had a bottoming tap so I could start with a tapered tap and work my way to the bottoming tap to get the maximum number of threads.


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## Sick467 (Oct 29, 2019)

gto4ben said:


> ...The holes are approximately 0.128" dia. or a #30 bit. This is perfect for a M4 x 0.7 tap. I bought a kit from eBay that had a bottoming tap so I could start with a tapered tap and work my way to the bottoming tap to get the maximum number of threads.


Ben, Thanks for chiming in! Did you drill all the way through the front plate with the #30 bit? And, did you tap the front plate or the back sub-housing? I'm confused, I am assuming the #30 bit will remove enough of the rivet to take the back sub-housing off and, again assuming, you drilled al the way through the front plate, added a countersink for a M4 screw in the front and tapped the back sub-housing. Straighten me out.


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## gto4ben (May 27, 2018)

I started by drilling just enough of the rivet head to enable removal of the lamp housing. Zoom in on the photo to see how it looks after this step. A larger diameter drill bit was used, not a #30. I don't recall the exact size but it was a little smaller than the rivet diameter. 

No additional drilling was required since the M4 x 0.7 tap uses the existing hole size below the rivet head. It is not necessary to drill through the cover. I mentioned #30 drill as reference since that is the drill used for a M4 x 0.7 tap.

Start with the medium taper to begin the threads. Careful that you don't go too far or it will strip the soft metal. This tap is only for centering and starting since the hole is very shallow. Remove and proceed tapping with the bottoming tap. Use cutting oil with tap to get clean threads.

I'm still looking for a photo of the final result. I believe I did use a countersunk M4 screw but it shouldn't be that critical since the screws will clear the opening in the dash.


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