5/11/2006
Z Brackets are done! Well, they are done being drilled, and are in place. They will still need to be deburred and primed. Tonight I wised up (well with the help of some of my buds on Rivetbangers) by backriveting the rivets that hold the nutplates on the spar for the inboard bracket. This worked MUCH better than what I did last night. Brit was gone tonight for dog training, so my dad ran over to help me do this. I used a heavy bucking bar as a "backrivet plate", and the results were great! Then I set the left tank in place on the spar and drilled the inboard bracket.
It didn't say so in the instructions, but I didn't see any problem in drilling the leading edges to the spar at this point. We'll find out later if I'm right or wrong about this...At this point, the leading edges are removed in order to get to the outboard Z bracket for the fuel tanks. The LE's are back in the cradles.
With the inboard and outboard brackets drilled and cleco'd, the tank skins with ribs are removed to reveal the baffle. Doing it this way gives wide open space to drill the baffles to the brackets. The LE's and tanks take up the entire work table for now...
Then the baffles are drilled to #30. Back to Vans instructions at this point.
2.5 hours