(18-4 step 9):
Alright!!! Back at it! Last thing to do before
riveting is to prime a bit. I plan to prime the exterior of the
ribs and baffle after the tanks are assembled. However, there are
some surfaces that are more easily accessible prior to assembly, and a
couple of mating surfaces that I'd like to get some primer
between. So, the plan is to prime the bearings, the shims, and
the tank attachment zees. In the pic you can see the tape
attached to each zee where it will be prosealed to the baffles.
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After
mixing up the primer, and while waiting through it's 'induction
period', I brushed some on the tank brackets where the shims and
bearings attach. Why didn't I spray these? I didn't feel
like taking the time to mask off the portion of these brackets that are
internal to the tank (you don't want primer inside the tanks... could
flake off and clog the fuel lines)
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And
hears a shot of one of the zees after priming showing the "primer free"
bonding area ;-) On another note… the reason I wanted to
prime these things now is because once these things are attached to the
baffles it will be next to impossible to prime the underside of the
flange with the nutplates (the surface my thumb is on).
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(18-4 step 1):
Yeah baby! Time to rivet!!! First up…
nutplates… attaching all the nutplates to the tank attachment
zees.
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(18-5 steps 4 & 5):
Next up was riveting the VA-146 bearings to the tank attachment
brackets. After that a couple of nutplates were riveted to the
upper shims. Then finally, the shims were riveted to the tank
attachment brackets along with more nutplates.
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| And that's it, it's time to get dirty! Next up, we'll bust out the proseal… |
