Started Section 22 today after taking a day off to tidy up the shop and run a bunch of errands.
I was forewarned about Page 22-02 and now I know why. The instructions here need a bit more verbiage, and some of the steps appear to be in need of corrections. I'll take them step by step and add my comments. Maybe the folks at Van's will take note and use some of the suggestions. I would suggest that prior to doing any riveting that you dry fit all of the components on Page 22-02 with cleco's to give you a good visual representation of the finished assembly. My comments are in parentheses.
Step 1. Dimple the (two) #40 holes, flush aft side. (No problems here, though, I almost dimpled them from the wrong side. Label the F-1201C, Firewall bottom, FWD and AFT after looking at Figures 1 and 4. As mentioned in some of the other blogs, the figures give one an optical illusion. Figure 2 on Page 22-03 is also helpful).
Step 2. Machine countersink the tunnel ribs, fwd fuse skin and the stiffener (stiffener is flush forward side!!!). (No problems).
Step 3. WARNING!!!! 2X!!!! Dimple the nutplates and rivet them to the Tunnel ribs and the firewall bottom as shown in Figure 1. (The nutplates do NOT need to be dimpled because the rivet holes in the tunnel ribs have been MCS. You ONLY want to attach nutplates to the sloped portion of the tunnel ribs. There is no nutplate on the firewall bottom shown in Figure 1. You DO NOT want to rivet any nutplates to the firewall bottom here. They are riveted in Step 9 and Step 13. I riveted the nutplates and had to drill them out!!!)
Step 4. Cleco, final drill, rivet the engine mount brackets. (No problems.)
Step 5. Machine countersink #30 the holes in the forward flange of the tunnel ribs. (No problems. Check your countersink depth by cleco'ing the pieces together to see if it is deep enough.)
Step 6. Cleco then rivet the tunnel ribs to the fwd fuselage skin. (There is no mention here about riveting the 6 nutplates, they are attached in Step 9. Would be nice if a note was added). Cleco then rivet the firewall bottom and the left and right fwd fuselage corner skins. (There is no mention here about riveting the 7 nutplates, they are attached in Step 9. Would be nice if a note was added). (You also have to look at Figure 4 to see where the LP3-4 rivets go.)
Step 7, 8. Trim and rivet F-1288. (The nutplate rivet holes on F-1288 need to be MCS to match the pre-dimpled holes in the firewall bottom. The nutplates do not need to be dimpled. Also, Step 8 references Figure 4 unnecessarily).
Step 9. Rivet the tunnel rib nutplates. (No problems.) Rivet firewall bottom nutplates (No problems). (Nowhere do the plans tell you to rivet the firewall bottom to the tunnel ribs/engine mount brackets and the tunnel ribs to the fwd fuselage skin. I did it at this time.)
Step 10, 11, 12 Make and install spacers and cowl attach plates. (No problems).
Step 13. Rivet the single nutplate to the firewall bottom. (The holes are dimpled so it would seem logical that the nutplate be dimpled).
Step 14. Use a unibit to enlarge the hole. (A caution should be added here that there is a flange behind the hole and as it is drilled the unit-bit will wander, guess that is why the plans tell you to draw the cross hairs).
Finished half of the steps today on page 22-02 although I've added my comments on all of them. Should finish page 22-02 tomorrow.
Time - 5 hours (Includes removing a bunch of nutplates!!)
