Riveting – Page 5

Empennage, rudder, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer continued…

Rudder bottom fairing and taillight complete.

Spinner backing plates ready for installation.

Spinner screw holes drilled up to #19.

Empennage tip fairings and spinner gap fillers ready for installation.

The tip fairings are definitely not perfect, but they’re perfectly airworthy, so I’m fine with moving forward at this point. So far as I’m concerned, getting them perfect falls under paint shop surface prep – and they’ll be paid plenty for the work.

Left horizontal stabilizer tip fairing riveted in place.

Right horizontal stabilizer tip fairing riveted in place.

Vertical stabilizer tip fairing riveted in place.

Spinner plate assembly and front bulkhead drilled for nutplates and countersunk.

Firewall forward components

Alternator mount bracket installed and safety-wired.

Alternator installed. Several of the bolts are yet to be final-torqued, as the alternator’s final position is determined after mounting the prop.

Best to drape the alternator belt roughly in place now, lest one forget it until after the prop bolts have been torqued.

Alternator power wire installed and secured.

The new prop emerging from its nest.

Ta-da! Seventy-four inches of Hartzell goodness…

Spinner plate and doubler ring in process…

Spinner plate rough cut accomplished.

Spinner plate, doubler ring, and front spinner bulkhead ready for priming.

Spinner plate, doubler ring, and front spinner bulkhead primed.

Spinner plate and doubler ring riveted.

Prop has been placed in the workshop to come up to temperature overnight.

It’ll be mounted tomorrow and torqued later in the week after the special extension crowfoot wrench arrives.

Empennage, elevator progress

Left elevator tip fairing drilled in place.

Left elevator tip fairing drilled up to final hole size.

Left elevator tip fairing riveting in progress.

Left elevator tip fairing riveted in place and ready for flight!

Right elevator tip fairing drilling in progress.

Right elevator tip fairing drilled up to final hole size.

Right elevator tip fairing riveting in progress.

Right elevator tip fairing riveted in place and ready for flight!

Empennage, rudder installation

Rudder bottom fairing doubler drilled and clecoed in place.

Rudder bottom fairing doubler center hole cut.

Rudder bottom fairing doubler floxed and riveted in place.

Rudder bottom fairing doubler cleaned of squeezed out flox.

Rudder tip fairing drilled and clecoed in place.

Rudder tip fairing drilled up to final hole size.

Rudder tip fairing riveted in place and ready for flight!

Empennage fairing set in place for an initial fitting. It actually looks quite good – better than expected and much better than the last one I installed back in 2001.

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