Day 69

Exciting stuff today! We were able to get the firewall all buttoned up with rivets, get some sound proofing foam insulation installed, and mounted the motor mount on the front.

With the firewall, we started by riveting the center support channels. These lined up very nicely and only required a little clear drilling on a few holes. Then we Cleco’ed on the vertical motor mount support channels and riveted those in place. Lastly for the firewall was riveting the side skins. This was a little more work. Everything gets very tight as it wraps around the nose, so we went one cleco and rivet at a time, using a clamp to make sure everything was sandwiched tightly together before clear drilling, deburring and then pulling the 4.0 x 12mm countersunk rivets. After completing the side skins we were also able to finish riveting the side skins to the bottom skin in the front where we had left them off to give us a little more room when installing the firewall.

Next we installed the Firewall sound proofing insulation foam. Normally you would trace out all of the components that are to be mounted on the outside of the firewall and then cut them out, but we haven’t received our firewall forward kit yet. So we will have to cut those sections out later once the crate arrives. For the time being we just cut out where the motor mount will go.

Lastly today we were able to get the motor mount installed on the front of the firewall. It required 4 AN5-7A bolts. The nylock nuts were put on the inside and then torqued.

We would have began assembling the front wheel gear assembly, but there are a few things on back order so we will have to wait for those. Now that the firewall is riveted on we can resume with some of the interior work. Can’t do the top skins and canopy until the undercarriage is completed, so hopefully the back order items arrive soon.