When I was doing the left crotch strap attachment, I missing priming the right hand side, so I had set it aside until I got it primed. I did remember it last time and had it sitting around waiting to finish.
Once I finished up the flap assembly I decided to knock it out - seemed like a good time and I wanted to clear up any unfinished stuff before I started moving on with the forward cockpit.
The second one went in much easier. I'd figured out the angles with the angle drill and how to line it up with the left side, so it went pretty quickly. As usual with this stuff, I made all the mistakes on the first one, so the second one came out like I would have liked the first to but didn't. :)
Brackets match drilled and nutplates installed.
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The second one I had a much better clamping system to space it correctly. I used some scrap that was the right thickness and a bunch of cleco clamps to hold it tight for drilling the seatbelt attach as well as into the ribs.
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I also clamped the snot out of it when it put it into the fuse for drilling. It doesn't look accessible in this pic, but the forward side is easily drilled. The black thing in the middle is my small square to make sure it's vertical.
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Fini
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Next thing to do was the main gear weldments.
I'd been dreading these. When I was tired one day and fooling around I tried getting one in and couldn't - the hole wasn't big enough, and there were some other obstructions, not the least of which was the line of nut plates along the forward upper edge of the spar.
I was having nightmares that I wouldn't be able to get it in.
First things first - get the gear leg into the weldment.
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I worked on this guy pretty much non stop for about 2 hours.
There were a couple of gotchas that were AHA! moments that might save some folks some grief.
I had enlarged the hole in the floor enough with a file that I knew it would fit ok, but it kept hanging up and not going in. I was stumped until I finally saw two issues.
One was dumb - I still had the bolt through the upper spar where the spacer goes. The nut is hidden under the flange and I didn't see it. It was preventing the frame from sliding aft enough.
Once I took that out things improved quite a bit, but it still wouldn't fit tightly enough aginst the side like it was supposed to.
The other issue was a bit harder to see since I was doing all the work hanging over the side with the plane on supports about 16" high.
The support bracket that is near the center section won't slide between the previously installed floor stiffener and the spar. The stiffener has to be trimmed back a bit so the gear main can slide behind.
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I did that with my Dremel. Once I did that it fit fine. Much relief when that finally happened. After a lot of fussing and more match drilling, here's the final result.
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