Time: 3 Hours
I had a company event in Omaha this last weekend that prevented me from doing a lot of hangar work but I did get to spend some time on Sunday. My goal was to finish up the seat floors which was just the forward floor and the foot wells as wells as the left and right side console covers. I started with the foot wells by scuffing, cleaning and priming all the parts before riveting. I was able to get to all the rivets with my 4″ yoke on the pneumatic squeezer. I then riveted the left and right foot wells to the forward floor. I placed the whole assembly in place to check the fit. I cleckoed the seat back hinge in place, I’ll rivet that later after painting.
The next task was to fit the left and right side panel covers. These lower panels will be along side my thigh area and the left houses the fuel selector valve. I removed parts of the valve substructure so I could get good measurements for drilling a pilot hole dead center of the valve stem. Once I was happy with that placement I drilled the hole larger to an 1 1/8″ to fit around the valve stem base. With that hole finished I was able to place the cover in its spot and put a few screws in to hold it. There are two #19 holes in the cover that need to be used to match drill the mid longeron for nut plates. With those drilled I removed the cover and cleaned up all the holes. Using a nutplate as a guide I drilled the nutplate rivet holes and countersunk them for flush rivets. I found that riveting these rivets was very difficult due to the structure around them. I was unable to use a gun and bar so I had to use the squeezer the best I could. What I ended up with was the rivets sitting proud of the countersink a little. I decided that drilling these out would be a huge pain and adding potential for screwing up other things like the paint. So I left them as they are knowing that they aren’t structural and just there to keep the nutplate from turning. They are secure just not pretty, the good thing is that they are never seen as the cover does just that, cover. I moved over to the right side and did the same stuff minus the fuel valve stuff. I think I will eventually put a cup holder in this cover. Before I cleaned up shop I grabbed the fuel valve cover plate and valve handle to see how they looked.