Odds And Ends

With the fuselage on the gear two tasks that need to get done are: A. Adjusting axle alignment and B. Adding 10 nutplates along the exhaust tunnel to secure the Cooling Flap Assembly. Both are 2-man jobs. So, I busied myself with other small tasks until I had help available. I started out by removing 10 rivets under the fuselage where the nutplates will go. After upsizing those holes to #19 to accept a #8 machine screw I used my nutplate jig to drill the adjacent rivet holes. Most I could drill from inside the fuselage but four of them needed to be drilled from underneath. I used a reference line drawn through the centers of the line of rivets to make sure the jig was aligned properly. I also elected to use NAS 1097 rivets for the first time. These have a very shallow, low profile flush head. The countersink needed is thus much shallower then for a normal AN426 flush rivet. With the rivets hole drilled I needed help to actual set them. Building buddy Craig came by today and we quickly drove the 20 rivets and got all 10 nut plates attached. Everything lined up on the Cooling Flap Assembly base plate when I temporarily attached it underneath for a fit check. Glad that chore is over. Axle alignment will have to wait till Friday when our custom alignment tool arrives from Fed Ex. I've done other "busy work": Attaching landing gear leg tube dirt covers, building some flap and aileron pushrods, creating wing root cover stiffeners and adding AN fittings to the brakes.