Well I started today trying to prepare to rivet on the skin tomorrow, I had set up an appointment with a local RV-8 builder to help, but I was taking too long and felt I might be rushing things so we put things off for a couple days.
What I did do was fit the skin, drilled the hole in the dash for some antenna wires, and checked the rivet holes for rivet fit. The holes with tabs from various rib flanges seemed to no allow the rivet to slide in. One that I could not get to was under the cross cabin brace. I was able to use a snake camera to see the tab through a tooling hole in the baggage wall. I could get a cleco in but not the rivet. I mixed up some JB weld and with it on the end of a zip tie and using another hole I was able to dab some JB weld under the tab then left the cleco in until is set up. Now everything lines up. I knew that camera was worth the money!
I also came up with a way to keep the EGT/CHT wires with some slack. I used silicon wrap and a grommet to act as a bumper against the conduit hole. I also painted the F8104 skin support so I can rivet them on before the skin is put back in place, oh yeah I removed the skin once again to inspect once more the area under the skin.
I did a bit of touch up on the roll bar where it will be hidden behind the skin; I don’t want any rust forming in these areas. I also glued on some tabs to held the coax I will use for my G/S antenna.
