As it happened it was all the parts Sonex had sent me for the repairs via Air freight. I basically just had to install a few gussets and ally angle stiffeners with the new firewall. It was a straight forward skirmish and came out just like this.... Sweet..
I fitted the rudder pedals during the week also. This however , I hate to say it, was made really easy whist the firewall was out. It gave plenty of access to the area and the job was simple.
I started riveting the horizontal stabilizer towards the end of the week. I did have quite a drama however with the rivets not snapping off correctly. It seems most were snapping proud of the rivet dome, which was really uncool, I thought. Using the hand riveter, however, produced a perfectly fitted rivet. No way I was going to do that 400 times though.
I tried all different settings on the air riveter and new jaws as well to no avail. In the end I was googling the issue and as it happens on the Sonex builders web site someone mentioned the air pressure and noted that if it was too high this could be the issue. So down to Bunnings for a regulator and walah! Problem solved. The only issue now was the 100 or so rivets that had shafts sticking out. So anyway at Bunnings I also bought a Dremel with a simple router attachment and went to work. As I always like a happy ending this was how the story turned out too. The rivets ground down flush really easily and look very neat.
I had a bit of a look around mounting the engine mount, so I can get this thing on the landing gear. I had to shape the lower engine mount a little to give access for the landing legs but it wasn't too much of a deal. I just had to be careful not to take away too much metal from the bracket, just enough to clear the gear leg tubes. It's held on by clamps at the moment until I can be sure all is good.
Hopefully next week will be just as productive. I think I still have some missing parts from the kit so during the week at work I will email Sonex and ask them about it.
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