Brief Description: Replaced nutplate on right fuel tank
This morning my goal was to remove the right fuel tank and replace the nutplate that gave me so many problems a couple of weeks ago. Ross arrived at the hangar shortly after I got there and while he preflighted his Pitts, I set about removing bolts and screws. I needed a little help lifting the wing to get the last few screws out and once we got that done, the tank was off.
When Ross offered me a ride in the Pitts I jumped at the chance--what a blast! Thanks Ross, you gave me motivation to keep working and get this project into the air!
Replacing the nutplate only took a few minutes, and once I drilled the old one out, I immediately realized that somehow I had put a #6 nutplate where I should have put a #8 nutplate...no mystery why that didn't work. Of course nothing is ever as easy as you'd think, and in this case it was the fact that I couldn't get the squeezer behind the Z-bracket to get the rivets set. Yep, out came the bucking bar and rivet gun. With Ross holding the tank we got the rivets set and then put the tank back in place.
After installing all of the bolts, I torqued everything down and now I'm ready to rivet the bottom skin on.
