Misc Rear Fuselage Tasks
While I wait for replacement rivets for the side skins, I worked on a few miscellaneous tasks.
- Finished assembly of one of the front seats
- Installed rivets into rear fuselage skins – I purposely left it cleco’d in a ready-to-close state in case I thought of any last-minute changes needed, but a month has passed and so I decided it’s time
- Riveted down the comm antenna mount on top of the fuselage
I installed stainless steel M4 rivnuts for the comm antenna plate, rather than the coated steel rivnuts that are more commonly used throughout the plane. In addition to being a little stronger, I figured the extra corrosion resistance would be beneficial in this location. I was only able to install 2 of the 4 rivnuts because the forward locations were too close to the ceiling in my garage! I’ll need to come back to install them once the aircraft is on wheels.
Some of the holes didn’t line up very well between the skin and rib 6 on the rear fuselage, and so I had to slot the holes somewhat when I was initially fitting the skins. I decided to upsize some of the holes to 4.0mm to make it less slotted, which is what I think others have done too.
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Hello Patrick
just a suggestion, do you think its worth trying to fit the comm antenna down flush onto the plate.
I’d have to look into it more… I think there’s a gasket of some sort that fits between the antenna and the mounting plate, maybe that makes it fit up against the skin, but I’ll take a look tonight and report back
Most of the heavy lifting to support the Comm antenna is done by the plate internally, I think the outside thin plate is there more to protect the skin.
Are you talking about removing the thin plate on the exterior? I took some photos to show what it looks like when the antenna is installed (Rami AV-10), see my separate post.