Brief Description: Install lower cowl hinge (23-08)
The trickiest part of installing the cowl hinge is that in order to drill the hinge and spacer you must remove all the clecos, but as soon as you do that the firewall and the side skin holes don't line up. So after reading lots of posts I decided to start at the top and pull out the first 3 clecos and clamp the upper portion of the hinge and spacer in place. Then I drilled the top hole and added a cleco to that hole though all the parts. Once I had that in the right spot I started working my way down the hinge by removing a cleco and adding a clamp, while trying to make sure the hinge and the spacer are aligned, as well as the holes of the firewall flange and side skin. It took several tries, where I had to disassemble and start back at the one drilled hole, but I eventually got it to work.
Also make sure to get the hinge orientation right. The top edge should have a hinge tab and the bottom should not. I spent a little time looking at other build pictures to confirm I had it right.
Completed section 23.
Left lower cowl hinge finally drilled and ready to rivet
