1.8 Hours -
Working on the left tank skin is definitely giving me a sense of déjà vu.
I started by drilling the fuel cap and drain flanges to the skin. The drain flange is relatively simple since it just has to be centered over the hole in the skin, and then the holes in the flange are used to match drill the skin. The fuel cap flange is only slightly more complicated since it has a bend in it and must be more carefully aligned with the skin. Once it is aligned, holes in the skin are used as a guide to drill the flange.
The drain valve flange is pretty easy to align and drill.
After drilling the fuel cap flange, it had to be countersunk on one side. I usual, I opted to used my cordless drill, instead of the air drill, to do this. Hopefully, when it comes time to rivet the cap flange, I’ll put the vent line clip on the correct side this time.
This is me countersinking the left fuel cap flange. To bad the case for my drill is blocking everything!
The left fuel cap flange after being drilled and countersunk.
Next, I deburred both sides of all the holes in the tank skin. After deburring, I set up my pneumatic squeezer and dimpled all of the holes that could be reached with my three-inch yolk. Finally, I dimpled all of the #8 screw holes around the perimeter of the skin. Tomorrow, I’ll have to dimple the rest of the holes in the skin using my c-arm dimpler/riveter.
Another picture to prove to the FAA that I'm the builder. There's a lot of holes in the tank skin that need to be deburred.
