Brief Description: Fuse Final Assembly – Center Section attach
I fit the forward sub structure and the Center section together today and started to permanently affix those two separate pieces together as one. That’s the good news… the bad news is that it was very tight quarters for everything I did today and that made it much more difficult. I riveted the nutplates and the mid cabin braces to the top flange of the center section. That was uneventful, but then the 2 bolts and 2 rivets that attach the mid cabin braces to the center section have to be installed with one end inside of the center section. The bolt was easier – and was torqued to 60 in./lbs. but my hands were not made to bend the way I had to bend them to get the bucking bar inside the center section to buck those two -4 rivets. I couldn’t get the rivet guage on them to check the final product, but the lighted mirror showed them to pass visual inspection.
Then it was on to riveting the seat ramp supports to the forward inboard seat ribs. The top rivets were easily squeezed, but then the seat ramp supports were in the way so they had to be bucked. Here, the problem was the close proximity of the seat ramps to the center section spar support. Because things were so tight, I couldn’t get the rivet gun perpendicular to the rivet head as there were things in the way. I ended up going with the offset set and riveting from the outside in – the results were not perfect, but they were airworthy. It took much more time than the number of rivets normally take – but that’s how it goes.
