Abstract In recent years, mechanical clinching technology for joining lightweight materials is widely used on the automobile structure. However, if a higher load is applied on clinched joint, it may be damaged. It is important to repair the clinched joint to guarantee the normal work of the joint. A new process for repairing the damaged joint was proposed and investigated in this research. A special rivet was adopted to repair damaged joint. The sheets can be joined together again by generating a new interlock on the rivet. Forming force, failure mode, shearing strength, material flow, and energy absorption were studied to evaluate the effectiveness of this repairing method. The damaged joint was repaired and got a higher shearing strength using this method. By increasing forming force in repairing process, the new rivet interlock was strengthened, which resulted in the increase of shearing strength. The average shearing strength of clinched joint is 1673.2 N, and the shearing strength of repaired joint with a force of 45 kN is increased by 35.7 % compared with clinched joint.