11/3/2007
Another beautiful Saturday in Central Illinois! I started this morning by finishing the roll bar installation with those four rivets I didn't get to the other day.
Then I went back to sub-panel work. First I riveted the platenuts to the panel ribs.
Then I made the 768D seals. These are time consuming, but they turned out good.
I then drilled and riveted them to the 768B sub-panel sides.
The panel ribs were next. I drilled them to the side sub-panels, then riveted the two flush rivets on the top side.
Now stuff starts to come together at the front of the airplane. The side pieces were cleco'd in first, then the center sub-panel went in.
The little piece of angle that attaches the center channel was then drilled to the channel only.
Then I marked the centerline on the center channel so I could drill the top skin.
Before I drilled the skin, I noticed the brake lines were rubbing the firewall angle. Being stainless steel braided lines, they are VERY abrasive. This would obviously be a problem down the road from vibration, so I used a cushion clamp to keep them off the AL angle.
I had drilled and dimpled this skin a long time ago, but there are holes that are not drilled in some of the structure, so this had to be cleco'd on to drill those holes.
After all the holes were drilled, I removed the cleco's from the left side of the skin, and peeled it back to drill the 743B angle to the firewall.
Great day in the garage, and I expect another one tomorrow!
5.75 hours