59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

[John F.]

How many holes should be in the driver fender for the air cleaner adapter plate? 3 or 5? I have an original fender skirt from a 58-62 (not sure of the exact year) that has 3 holes. I'm assuming 1 hole is for the rivet and the other 2 are for the screw/bolts. However the repo plate that paragon and cc are selling has 5 holes (pic attached). 2 are for screw/bolts and 3 are for rivets. Also trying to verify what type of rivet should be used. Anyone have a 59 FI car in NE Ohio?

[Bill M.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

How many holes should be in the driver fender for the air cleaner adapter plate? 3 or 5? I have an original fender skirt from a 58-62 (not sure of the exact year) that has 3 holes. I'm assuming 1 hole is for the rivet and the other 2 are for the screw/bolts. However the repo plate that paragon and cc are selling has 5 holes (pic attached). 2 are for screw/bolts and 3 are for rivets. Also trying to verify what type of rivet should be used. Anyone have a 59 FI car in NE Ohio?

John:

3 holes in the fender. Here's a shot of the rivet. I get 0.40 in diameter and about 0.07 off the fiberglass. It's aluminum (non-magnetic).



Here's a shot from underneath. I don't see 5 holes. This is the original goop installed at St. Louis. (The bug house is a later addition; never noticed that. It's too cold to hose that out of there today!)

edit: I dug through the goop, and there are 5 holes in the plate. 2 outside of the weldnuts, just like Dave's below. Thanks, Dave



The car is an hour north of Toledo if you want to have a look.

Bill

[David M.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Here is a plate I took off a wrecked 61 years ago. Serial number in the low 6000's. Don't know about other years but I think they were the same.

[John F.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Looks like Bill has 3 on his 59 and Dave has 5 on his 61....interesting

[John H.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Looks like Bill has 3 on his 59 and Dave has 5 on his 61....interesting

John -

You're both saying the same thing - the nut-plate has five holes in it (and so does Paragon's), but only three were used - one for the central rivet, and two for the bolts, thus three holes in the inner fender panel.

[John F.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

John H - That makes sense however when I read Bob Baird and Tom Howey 58-60 Restoration Handbook (535 pages) it has the following photo on page 139. This shows 3 rivets being used.

[Philip C.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

John H - That makes sense however when I read Bob Baird and Tom Howey 58-60 Restoration Handbook (535 pages) it has the following photo on page 139. This shows 3 rivets being used.

Hi John, cant say that didnt happen on that car (three rivets) but I have had and seen a lot of 58-62 cars the way John H stated, and have not seen any with three rivets as your photo shows. Phil 8063

[Mike M.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

both my 61 and 62 fi nut platesv had ONE rivet securing the nut plate to the left inner skirt, as have all 61-2 bowtie cars i've judged.mike

[Bob B.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Hi all,

I've only got a couple of pics of the bracket since the air cleaner is usually attached. Here's the other pic. It shows three rivets also. I don't know if they cut down for 1961-62 to one or if these were re-riveted after coming out.

Anyone with an original fuel car that would take off their air cleaner and check for us would be appreciated. And please provide the year of car. My pics are of 58-60 vintage.

Since the air cleaner bracket covers the rivets anyway, I don't think anyone would notice either way.

Bob

[Bill M.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Hi all,

I've only got a couple of pics of the bracket since the air cleaner is usually attached. Here's the other pic. It shows three rivets also. I don't know if they cut down for 1961-62 to one or if these were re-riveted after coming out.

Anyone with an original fuel car that would take off their air cleaner and check for us would be appreciated. And please provide the year of car. My pics are of 58-60 vintage.

Since the air cleaner bracket covers the rivets anyway, I don't think anyone would notice either way.

Bob

Bob:

My pictures above are of a '59 assembled in Dec. 1958. It is a one-family car with all-original fiberglass so I know that the inner fender is original for a 290/283...one rivet as pictured.

Bill

[Justin B.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

My 1960 F.I. has one riveted hole along with the two screw holes and two unused holes, however my EARLY production 58' F.I. has 3 holes that are riveted along with the two screw holes. Maybe this answers the question about the extra mystery holes.

[John H.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Hi John, cant say that didnt happen on that car (three rivets) but I have had and seen a lot of 58-62 cars the way John H stated, and have not seen any with three rivets as your photo shows. Phil 8063

Phil -

Production guys are pretty proactive - when they figured out that one rivet worked just fine to hold the nutplate in position to drive the two bolts instead of three rivets, you can bet they stopped drilling two extra holes and installing two extra rivets.

[Justin B.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

By the way, the body on both the 1960 and the 1958 cars as mentioned in my earlier post are unhit, never a replaced panel.

[John F.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

Dave- when I look closely at your plate, it looks as if there is an outline around both outside holes. It almost looks as if there were, at one time, a rivet in both holes.

I appreciate everyones insight and opinions. I think I'm going to go with the fact that GM factory workers could have used one or three rivets and it all depends on the person working that day.

[David M.]

Re: 59 FI Air Cleaner Adapter Nut Plate

John,
I can see the outline that would make you think that but there was only one rivet on this car. I still have the fiberglass inner fender piece that I broke off with the plate. I can't find it right now in all my junk but there was only one rivet on that car.