9101 / 996C / 996B
I continued working on the gear leg web and the tank attach reinforcement angles. I installed the pilot side 9101 and matched drilled it where necessary. (Put the 9101 in first, then the 902.) I had made the 986C angle a couple of weeks ago but I needed to drill the holes in it first. I read the instructions 3 or 4 times before I proceeded in drilling. The 3/16" holes are drilled to #30 for now so you can cleco it in place. Basically you drill all the holes except the bottom hole. You draw a line down the center of the outboard flange. (Here's another place where they don't mean the exact center. You subract off the thickness of the angle, kinda hard to explain, will take picture.) Cleco it in place and then line up the line you drew in the hole on the other end. Which means you have to drill a hole through the skin and lower longeron if you haven't aleady. Once you do all that you take it apart and match drill the rest of the holes. Anyway.. did that on both sides. Took most of the evening.

Inboard face of 9101 with 996B angle drilled.

Outboard face (flip side) showing the 996C drilled/cleco'd.

Once I finished that I decided to tackle the 984 gussets again. I emailed Paul in the morning to see if he had trouble with his gussets. I also looked on his website. He responded later that he had to put a secondary bend in the gusset to get it to fit well... and pointed out that his was one his site, which I saw but didn't read carefully enough.

So I marked the secondary bend location and made the bend. Fits great now! I positioned one in place and started match drilling it in place. First I matched drilled the horizontal row of rivets using the skin as the template.. this drills the skin/lower longeron/steel bracket/gusset. Next I marked and drilled the vertical holes that attach it to the angle on the firewall. The plans have you pre-drilling the holes in the gusset and then using it to match drill with the angle. Problem with that is you have to peel back the skin to get access to drill into the angle. Instead, I left the holes undrilled and drilled from the inside out. Easy enough to do with the angle drill. Be sure and use a drill stop!! You don't want to drill holes in the side skin where they don't belong. :-) Two of the holes I can't get using the angle attachment because the steel bracket is in the way. I thought I would just drill them from the outside but decided I will just use my 12" #30 bit to drill from the inside. It has enough flex in it.

984 Gusset drilled in place.

(Time: 3 hrs)
- posted by Matthew @ 7:45 AM