Time: 5 Hours
Today I created a mirror of the bracket I made yesterday. I used a combination of the bandsaw, table disk sander and the good old scotch-brite wheel to get the shape just right.
The plans are a little vague about the next step which is to match drill the bracket to the rib as well as the reinforcing plate on the opposite side. The plans just call for the bracket to be 2″ from the leading edge and shows a pattern for the rivets but no dimensions. After talking to my friend (Glen a fellow -8 builder) I made a plan of attack. First I lined the bracket up to be parallel with the rib stiffening bend at 2″. Then I just eyeballed the placement of the rivet layout. Since I’m going with flop tubes in both tanks I needed to account for them with this layout. That’s due to the fuel line elbow will now come through these parts rather than the access plate at the aft end of the rib.
As you can see I used the nut to make sure I had clearance from the rivets.
Once I was happy with the layout I drilled the holes to their final size, the very center hole will be enlarged to 9/16″ for the fuel line elbow. With that done I could now use the bracket as a guide to drill the rib and backing plate.
I used my step bit in the drill press to enlarge the hole for the elbow.
I still need to enlarge the hole in the opposite bracket but was getting tired and will get to it tomorrow. It was a good day in the Hangar even though it was only little things that got done.
