Tank, aileron/flap brackets

06 Jul 2006: all of us, 3 hours each.



Tonight we finished the tank cover plate for the left tank. You can see the fuel pickup installed with the anti-rotation bracket, and the nutplates for the attachment of the sender through the hole. The float-type sender is visible at the left of the photo.

We also cut out a new cover plate for the aft bulkhead of the right tank, which we will use to install the sender. You can see the hole in the 2nd photo; note how much smaller it is than large hole in the end bulkhead, which is covered by a round blank cover plate with the blue film on it. It is a bit larger than the hole for the sender in the standard cover plate, which you can see in the first photo. This size will allow room to install the reinforcements and allow clearance for nutplates to install the sender (barely!)




We are putting a flop tube in the right tank only, and this requires relocating the sender to the next outboard bay to avoid mechanical interface between the flop tube and the sender. The suggested procedure is the same as if you have to repair a leak in the tank, i.e. cut the same size hole in the aft bulkhead as is used for the side bulkhead. However, we want to use a reamer to cut this hole, and the z-angles don't allow clearance. We think we can make smaller cut-out work, but it will be a challenge to rivet the cover and reinforcements in place, since the diameter of the hole won't allow room for our rivet squeezer yoke. Our idea is to use the blind rivets that don't have a hole in them. If they leak, we can always drill them out and cut the large hole.


We also did some quick hole reaming work on the aileron and flap attach brackets tonight. One of the rivets was misplaced, and we had to drill it out and re-locate it.