5th June 2010

Aft fuselage miscellany

Hours: 2.0 | Posted in Aft Fuselage

Not a whole lot of productive shop time today, but I was able to cross a couple things off the list: drilling the gussets which fix the tailcone bulkheads to the longerons, and installing the static ports.  I chose to proseal the ports in place (after removing a circle of primer), and clamped them while the proseal sets by using a large socket, with the drive hole placed over the protruding port.  I’ll give it a few days to set up before removing the clamps.  I did move the ports forward by about 3/16″ from the suggested location, due to interference between the flange of the port and the flange of the bulkhead.

Gusset plate attach holes in longeron Static port clamped in place Static port clamped in place

Other niggling items: I reversed the direction of the rudder cable snap bushings in the 706 bulkhead, so they are inserted from the tailcone, which is accessible via the baggage wall, rather than from behind the riveted-in-place aft baggage side panel.  I’ve read that you need to remove the snap bushings in order to squeeze them a bit to allow the end of the cables to pass through, and this will allow that removal to happen.

I also happened to notice that two rivets were never set in the bottom of the 706 bulkhead, at the very bottom of the tunnel.  Those will not be fun to get at now (they should have been set before the bulkhead was installed in the tailcone…not sure how they were missed!  They will require an offset set and some contortions, but should be doable even if a pain.

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