Fuselage

I continued my work tonight on the F-782C center cover and got it all finished. My first task was to drill for the nutplates on the new angle pieces. There are 3 on each side. The stiffener plate was countersunk for the covers' dimples. Then it was all the traditional deburring, dimpling, scuffing and priming of the parts.

Above are the two angle pieces and the stiffener plate, all dimpled or countersunk, primed and ready for riveting. First, I riveted the nutplates to the angles. Then I riveted the stiffener and its nutplates to the cover. Much of this was done with backriveting, so the results are excellent. Finally, I riveted the angles to the cover and it was finished. All this work did some minor cosmetic scuffing to the surface of the cover, and the top corners of the primed angles were showing as well. So to really make it look nice I shot another topcoat of my JetFlex paint to the whole thing. Here's the finished product:

Not bad, eh? Then I installed the fuel pump assembly onto the bracket, hopefully for good this time, and did a trial fit on top of the cover:

Nice! Then comes the big moment to install it in the fuselage and check the fit. It fits in place perfectly flat as it should, just a little bit snug as I wanted it to be.

Then I put the fuel pump assembly in place once again.

Perfect fit! The cover is flat as a pancake, fits snug as a bug, looks really nice, and I'm breathing huge sighs of relief after seeing this. I can't believe how good it feels to have all this mess cleared up. Now, after weeks of fiddling and fussing with this, I am FINALLY ready to move on and install the fuel lines. Then the brake lines, and then I'm finished with the cabin plumbing.

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