Brief Description: Bolt Control Column Brackets to Aft F704
I decided to bolt the control column brackets to the aft F704 bulkhead before riveting the bottom skins to the bulkhead. I wanted to torque these bolts before adding the forward F704 bulkhead. Otherwise there wouldn't be room to reach up between the bulkheads to insert washers and nuts for these bolts. Bolting these brackets on now will require me to use pop rivets on the bottom skin adjacent to the brackets though since there isn't enough room now to buck these rivets. No problem though, just 2 pop rivets are needed below each bracket on the bulkhead. The rest of the rivets along the bottom flange of the aft bulkhead can be shot / bucked. Once these brackets were on and torqued I started looking at the forward F704 bulkhead again. I trial fit the landing gear weldments to the bulkhead and discovered that there were 2 open holes on each end of the bulkhead that did not have rivet's and that weren't part of the landing gear assembly. I assume this was an oversite by whomever assembled my bulkheads. I checked with the folks on the RV-List and they said to just put bolts in these holes. They had contacted Van's who confirmed the oversite and said it would be OK to use bolts in these holes.
Bolts torqued and sealed on aft F704 bulkhead
Control column brackets bolted to aft F704 bulkhead
Trail fit of gear weldments...there are holes without rivets!
