Author Archives: Michael

Time: 6 Hours

The new firewall arrived last Saturday in prompt fashion from FedEx all crated up and secure from Van’s. Unfortunately, for the build, I had a very busy flight schedule this week flying all 5 days with a couple of overnights in there. That put a pause on the work in the Hangar for the week but I got back at it today. First up was to un-crate the firewall and get to deburring.

What I did get done last week I between flying was to touch up the paint on the parts that I removed from the damaged firewall.

I finished deburring all the edges using a file and sandpaper, man this stainless steel is sharp!

I then final drilled all the holes to their final sizes, this was done in conjunction with the other parts on the first firewall. After that I grabbed the DRDT dimpling machine and dimpled all the required holes. With all that work done I clecko’ed the substructure pars to the firewall for riveting.

As before the best way to rivet these parts is with the back rivet set.

Since I left the bottom support in the forward floor I left all those rivets out as well as both of the bottom engine mounts. This allowed me to slide the firewall back into position.

I was then able to get the remaining rivets with the bucking bar and gun.

Then it was just a matter of returning all the parts I removed to get at the firewall.

So I’m back in business and moving forward again. You might notice that the firewall is no longer resting on the table and is elevated about an inch or so with a couple pieces of 1″x4″ under the gear towers so this doesn’t happen again! Overall this mistake has cost me 10 hours of extra work, not as bad as I was figuring but I don’t want to do it again.

Time: 4 Hours

This last week I traveled to Orlando, Florida to attend the NBAA (National Business Aviation Association) annual convention. This is the largest aviation convention in the world and the 7th largest overall convention.

I attended various classes on several different topics including weather advances and fatigue management. Along with classes, seminars and presentations there is also a very large static display at the airport showing all the latest and greatest business aircraft.

Another thing the week did was to give me some down time away from the RV-8 build and Hangar to regroup and renew my build spirit after the huge mistake I made last week. So I had the new drive and ordered a new firewall and had it shipped for an arrival this weekend. So after running all the errands this morning I got in the Hangar to start the big job of disassembling the firewall.

If you remember all the parts on the firewall were riveted to it first before being riveted and ProSealed to the forward floor. I decided to leave the bottom support of the firewall attached to the forward floor so I don’t have to remove the old ProSeal. I looked at all the rivets and think I can get to them after the firewall is placed back into its position. So that row of rivets was the first up on the drill out schedule.

So now that the firewall was off the forward floor I put it on the workbench and started the drilling. I worked on one side and then the other so I could keep the parts organized. I drilled just deep enough so I could snap off the head and used the auto punch to pop out the shaft. All worked pretty good and I only had a few enlarged holes.

So all I have left to drill out are the 2 horizontal supports along with the various nutplates in them. I have an EAA chapter meeting tonight so that’s where I quit for the day.

Once I have all the parts off I will do some sanding and cleaning of the parts and put a fresh coat of paint on them. Hopefully the new firewall will arrive tomorrow and I can get to work finishing the edges and holes along with dimpling.