Chequer plate install

[JC Rover]

Hi all,

I've been busting my hump respraying the defender over the last few weeks. I'm about to respray the chequer plate black (on top of etch primer). I have a fair bit of chequer on my car- love it or hate it. Anyway my question is- does anyone silicone the chequer down (with rivets) to stop moisture getting in? I have done this in the past and it seemed to work well, although I would pay more attention to putting silicone around the rivets as this is where most corrosion occurred in the past. What do you think? What do you use? In the past I have used clear roof and gutter silicone. I was thinking of using black sikaflex 227. The car went from boring white to army green!!!! Photos are coming.

As a side note, i have a loan of a mates 3.9L disco and it has a thumping V8 with extractors and possibly some other goodies and it rocks! The noise is worth the cost in fuel. Puts a smile on my dial every time

Jono

cheers

Jono

[Leroy_Riding]

I haven't cheq'd up my Defender yet, though its in the pipeline, while looking i found most places offer gaskets, possible you could purchase some of these?

Ive used 227 before on other metal to metal rivet jobs (like rolla rack's and the alike) and its allways worked wonders. . . until you want to get them of :|

I also thought most people used 'rivnuts' and screws to attach the cheq? not rivets? this give the option to remove them periodicity for cleaning underneath and maintenance. . .

[JC Rover]

I haven't seen any gaskets but it is a good idea. I could make my own with rubber/foam or similar. I think it is important to keep moisture out, as it will corrode the aluminium panel underneath and the chequer too.

Thanks

Jono

[jimr1]

Hi mate , if i may suggest, abead of silicone or silastic ,about 5+8mm from edge , plus the same for centre inlet hole , would seal it .If you use aluminium rivets , you will not get any electroisis . A small dob of silicone/silastic over the rivets will seal the whole thing .. why would you wan't to take them off .. jimr1

[Leroy_Riding]

I haven't seen any gaskets but it is a good idea. I could make my own with rubber/foam or similar. I think it is important to keep moisture out, as it will corrode the aluminium panel underneath and the chequer too.

Thanks

Jono

you can get them from landy bits (ebay store) not sure which panels they offer them for but the usual wing top and bonnet panels they do.

personally I prefer everything to be removable for cleaning and maintenance, especially if your plates are painted you may want to remove them fro re-paining down the track, you can drill the rivets out but pulling the silicone up would be a pain, personally id use anodized rivnuts and gaskets and if the gaskets aren't available for the plates you have id make them myself out of thin rubber sheet. . .
my 2C

either way im a big fan of plates cant wait to get mine!

[Samblers]

My wing top plates were supplied with a gasket (patriot/landybitz), which I fitted, and the bonnet plate had no gasket.

Once I’d drilled the holes in the panel I put a little smear of sikaflex around the outside of the rivnuts before fitting them. Once fitted, I carefully painted sikaflex around the edge of the rivnut so that water could not seep in.

When I was fitting the checkerplate (black in my case), I put a thin smear of (black) sikaflex around the countersunk area so that water could not seep in past the bolt.

Hopefully this will be good enough to seal the holes I had to drill in the steel bonnet and keep water away from the underside of the checkerplate.

Hope this helps