Cabin Sides and Firewall Riveting (2h)

Today my goal was simply to rivet the firewall to the fuselage and complete the cabin sides. First step was to reassemble everything.

A little forward thinking had me realise that it would be easier to do some of the bolts for the lower bearing support in the nose leg without the firewall in place so the next step was to take the firewall off.

I bolted the lower bearing support in place, and then reinstalled the firewall. The line of bolts that coincide with the firewall are impossible to tighten unless you have arms that about at least 4 feet long, and able to put them over the firewall. Fortunately for me my wife was willing to use the spanner on the tops of the bolts while I ratcheted them from below.

While talking to Teri about the tasks remaining I innocently picked up the side gussets that had been drilled forever ago and said I wasn’t going to forget about these. It then dawned on me that these go behind the cabin side stiffeners so need to be installed now. So I removed each of the bottom stiffeners and riveted the gussets in place.