When we were putting together MBI Winds last year, I started asking around about equipment early in the summer. A nearby high school had a plastic sound cart that they hated. They said they were going to throw it away, so it was free for the taking 😲

I picked up the roto-molded SKB Gig Rig and we quickly put it into service. It was worse for wear. Missing the end cover doors, wheels that needed TLC, many latches broken. For the first season we used it as-is and just put a ratchet strap around the whole thing to hold it together since the latches were broken 😂

Fixing it up

For the 2024 season I wanted to fix the latches and remove our ratchet strap for a more professional look 🤵 I reached out to SKB and started doing some research on my own. I found this Southco latch and catch plate to be drop-in replacements. However, SKB support was able to send me replacement latches free of charge.

Installation posed a challenge as I’ve never worked with pop rivets before. But I watched a couple youtube videos that I found helpful to remove the broken latches:

Trying it for myself

I purchased a pop rivet tool that included several rivet sizes. I did a couple practices on scrap pieces of metal to get the feel for it. Since the SKB rack is plastic, I don’t want to damage it.

I was able to remove the old rivets fairly easy using a drift/punch and a drill bit as shown in the first video. But when it came time to install the new rivets, there was an issue…

Above the rivet is in place, ready to be installed. The rivet tool pulls on the section of the pop rivet sticking out. But as you can see below, the nose piece gets blocked by the latch hinge:

The quick and dirty solution was to use two small nuts as stand-offs. I could have used washers or something else, but this is what I had laying around that worked. Then the nose piece could be pushed in flush, and there was still enough of the rivet to grab.

Conclusion

I was able to fix all four broken latches with this method. I wound up using the 3/32″ rivets supplied with the tool because they were made of a softer aluminum that seems to get along better with the SKB’s plastic. SKB support included their own pop rivets but they seemed to require multiple pulls of the rivet tool and didn’t always behave like I expected. I chalk it up to first-timer experience, but whatever the case is, this rack is back!