Elise chassis repair / aluminium welding? Advice needed..

[Corranga]

I'm planning to use 3M Epoxy Structural Adhesive - DP490 which I believe cures at room temperature fully in about a week, has good shear strength, and gives me around an hour to get it all correctly in place!
I have the correct mixing nozzle and access (can borrow) a compatible manual applicator gun.

I have a heater in my garage with a thermostat which I was planning on setting to 17 degrees or something for overnight, and my garage also has a dehumidifier in it, so moisture shouldn't be an issue - though I'm not sure if I have to go this far?

Prep wise, I was considering using the marine clean degreaser from POR-15 then scotch pad to rough the surface up a bit, then another degrease, but might buy some of the 3M VHB sachets and use them as per the datasheet.
As far as I understand it, the initial clean / degrease is to stop the metal being contaminated as I use the abrasive pad to rough it up, and the 2nd is to clean up the bits left by the abrasive.
I read that as a test, I can drip some water on the surface and if it beads, it's not clean, if it spreads out it is, so I plan to do that as a test, probably followed by another degrease to be absolutely certain than things are going well.

I'm then thinking suspension bolt in place with shims / middle of old suspension bush in place to hold the plate in place on the vertical plain, and probably some clamps on the horizontal.
Alternatively, I might drill a hole in the top and using a bolt with a repair washer through the existing oval hole on the car to hold the plate in place whilst the bond cures.

I'm a little concerned that the shims etc might be picked up by the bond, and end up stuck to the car so am trying to research preventing this. I was wondering if simply having an oily washer would do it, but I obviously don't want to contaminate the bonding surfaces either!

Any further advice / can you spot gotchas in there?

[robin]

Can you rivet the pieces together (maybe two rivets through each face) - it might be easier to machine everything (including perhaps the rivet holes), trial assemble it without the adhesive OR rivets and be sure it will all work. Then dismantle, final clean over the surfaces, apply adhesive and rivet the mofo into place while the adhesive cures. If the rivets would interfere with the bushes, etc., you can always just drill them out once the whole thing has cured - the adhesive alone should provide enough strength (and if it didn't, you wouldn't rely on the rivet to be the last line of defence anyway ).

Just a thought - might be easier than accidentally bonding either the bolt or the bush into place

Cheers,
Robin

P.S. Or use small bolts in place of rivets - these might give you better assembly tolerances.

[BiggestNizzy]

A rivet will help avoid peel failures.

[Corranga]

I was considering riveting to hold in place, or those self tapping like screws that Lotus seemed to use in the first place. I ruled out screws based on cross corrosion but alloy rivets make sense. The strength is all on the top so I might go for that.