Today I continued preparing all the front deck parts. I primed the small brackets that attach to the top edge of the instrument panel and fitted nutplates where required. I also ran a tap through every nutplate so the screws aren't so tight.
Next I put the top forward skin back on and match drilled the holes in the firewall where the centre rib attaches. For some reason these aren't pre-drilled. I spent quite a bit of time just working out how I was going to drill these, and ended up taping a mirror to the top of the rudder pedal cross pieces. This then allowed me to see up the inside of the firewall where the rib attaches. I then put my right angle drill extension into my right angle drill, and working through the firewall recess I managed to drill and cleco four of the six holes. I then took the top skin off and drilled the last two. Job done.
With the skin off I also dimpled all the holes along the firewall flange. Cousin Harvey's pneumatic squeezer sure made short work of this.
Fitting nutplates to the small angle brackets that run around the top edge of the instrument panel
This was the only way I could see up inside the firewall to drill the rivet holes
The pneumatic squeezer made very short work of dimpling the firewall flange rivet holes
