25 Jan
| Hours today: | 1.4 | Hours wings: | 183.6 | Hours total: | 281.9 |
| Rivets today: | 0 | Rivets wings: | 3558 | Rivets total: | 5637 |
Put new anchor nuts on the right fuel tank, then fitted the tank onto the wing.
26 Jan
| Hours today: | 2.5 | Hours wings: | 186.1 | Hours total: | 284.4 |
| Rivets today: | 68 | Rivets wings: | 3626 | Rivets total: | 5705 |
Oops. I noticed that a bolt was missing near the wing root, running through the first rib and the main spar:
The missing bolt.
There is only one problem: the bolt head itself is inside the tank that I’ve just fitted. Before I got too excited, I checked the record. Here’s a main spar I took a photo of at the factory:
The bolts on the main spar at the factory, note that there is one gap and five bolts.
I compared that to a photo of my main spar before the tank went on, taken quite a while back:
My tank: note four bolts and two holes.
What a pain. The bolts that hold the tank in place are accessed through small hatches in the underside of the wing, so it was back in with my definitely not inspector gadget hands, take them off, put the bolt where it belongs, then torque up the eight bolts that hold on the tank again.
The head of one of the bolts that holds the tank onto the main spar.
All now looks well, so I riveted the underside of the tank to the main spar. After all the manhandling, I wanted to check that the tank was still airtight. It appears to be.
Testing the airtightness of the fitted tank.
sling056 