(18-4 steps 1 & 8): Angela began the tank disassembly by deburring the zees & one of the the baffles.
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(18-5 step 2): Here
the shims were clecoed in place & all the holes were final
drilled. These shims will hold the nutplates used to attach the
wing root fairings.
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Another
step the plans don't call out… final drilling the bearing used
to attach the aileron torque tube to the tank attachment bracket.
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(18-4 step 8):
Angela came back out and deburred the remaining baffle's holes,
and followed that up by deburring all the stiffener holes.
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(18-3 step 3): We're
going with the stock fuel caps. Van's sells a lockable fuel cap
for something like $100 a piece and since we plan to hangar our plane,
didn't feel it was worth the additional expense. Anyway, the
first step in fitting these things is to adjust the flange to match the
curvature in the skin. The flanges have a bend at opposite ends
that gets it pretty close, but you still have to do a little
adjusting. In addition to adjusting the bend I also used the belt
sander to sand a bit of the apex of the bend down to make a smother
transition. The flange on the left has been adjusted and
sanded. The one on the right shows the cap and flange as
delivered... notice, no rivet holes yet... that's coming.
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(18-3 step 4): Once
the curve of the flanges was acceptable it was time to fit the fuel
caps & flanges to the skins. With the caps in place in the
flanges to aid in centering the flanges in the opening of the skins,
the flanges were match drilled to the skins.
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(18-4 step 8): Then
the rivet holes in the fuel cap flanges were countersunk in order to
accept the dimples that will eventually be put in the skins.
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(18-2 step 5):
Ok, here's the explanation I promised a couple days
ago… the inboard rivet holes of the inboard most
stiffeners don't line up with the holes in the tank skins (intentionally).
Instead, the tank skins had a hole that needed to be match drilled into
the stiffeners as can be seen in the pic. From this 'new' hole a
mark is made 1/4". The stiffeners will be trimmed at this
mark. The purpose for this is so the stiffeners will have a gap
between them and the inboard rib on the lower skin. This provides
a channel for water that may be present in the fuel to migrate to the
rear, where the drain is located.
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