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Clecos in dimpled holes

skelrad

Well Known Member
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Tonight was the first night of riveting for my build! All in all it went well, minus the middle nose ribs of the horizontal stabilizer. How anyone has small enough hands to hold a bucking bar in there for the foremost rivet is beyond me. I managed to do it tap by tap, but I’m glad this part of the build will forever be hidden. Ugly!

One of my problems with the nose ribs was that I couldn’t get clecos to stay in and hold things together. Is that normal for post-dimpled holes? They are okay on parts with no tension, but any parts that need to be pulled together a bit (like the nose rib and skin) just makes them pop out. Is this normal?
 
Some cleco brands fit better than others in dimpled holes. Wedgeloc vs clecoloc.. I forget which is the better one. Make sure your drill bit isn’t bent or dull, also that your drill chuck runs true. These can make the drilled holes slightly larger than spec. Some people use a 41 bit because of this, but the danger is that drilling a slightly smaller hole will stretch more and possibly have cracks. A tip to help if the clecos keep popping is to make some scrap squares with a #40 hole to act as a temporary washer to hold the cleco in.
 
washers

I bought some washers that fit (I show them to be an960-3) and put them in place. The cleco holds the washer and keeps everything together. You buy them at a local hardware store or at spruce....plan on losing some...
 
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Wedgelock

Wedgelock is best. The center stem is .005" thicker than any other brand. Never had one fall out.
4-40 washers or nuts work well but need a quick pass with a #40 bit.
Reamers will make perfectly round holes but I suspect you have ClekoLock clekos. They fall out.
 
Early on, I mixed up cleco brands and found that occasionally I had a dimpled hole that the cleco wouldn't stay in. Rather than digging through the bucket for a cleco that would, I just took a piece of scrap aluminum and made back up washers for places where the cleco won't stay in. Drill them 1 number undersize and no dimple.
 
I can't believe I didn't think about backing up the hole with a washer of some sort! Great idea. I know I didn't get the "good" clecos, but when I ordered my tools there was no choice due to manufacturing backlogs. Clecos or no clecos was the choice. I'll grab some washers and make them work.
 
Resurrecting this thread because I found another answer to clecos falling out: they come in more than two sizes! Well, we knew this, but more sizes than that, too. Frustrated with 3/32 clecos falling out of dimples even though they're the "good" brand, and being ill-equipped to use backing nuts/washers/strips, I ordered some odd size clecos in 2.5mm and 7/64, which are nominally 0.005 and 0.015 larger. Solves my problem nicely. They are more expensive than common clecos, but not many are needed.
 
Too much tension

I had the problem that out of 1200 some odd brand new clecos available, none tried had sufficient spring tension to get the skin to lay flat near the nose of that skin. Finally found an old timer that shared that 'thumb pressure' should be sufficient to mate our skins to our ribs. If it takes more than that then we owe it to ourselves to take out some preload.

It stands to reason that some skins are bent more than others. This may be because of nesting them during shipment and the lower skins in that nested stack getting spread out, just a guess there.

Sometimes you just need to work on your bends until they fit nicely on their own. It's your build afterall.
 
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