Drilled Right Tank Drain and Cap

Well, admist going to work, running some errands, and doing a MILLION things in the yard, I managed to do two really fun things today.

First, I drilled the VA-112 (Drain Flange) to the lower inboard part of the right tank, and also drilled my fancy new deluxe fuel caps to the upper outboard part of the tank.

The actual quick drain will screw into the drain flange, but for now, I’m just using a rod end bearing lightly threaded in the flange to make sure it’s centered in the drain hole already in the skin.

The drain flange is pre drilled and pre countersunk, so I’ll use that to matchdrill holes in the skin.

The drain flange and quick drain. I don't need the quick drain, so it went back in the storage bin.

VA-112 and CAV-110.

You can just barely see the tip of a rod end bearing being useful to me here.

Once I had two clecos in, I removed the rod end bearing.

All six holes drilled.

Next, I pulled out my deluxe fuel caps. (This is where you go “oooooooh, ahhhhh.”)

Van's even underlined the name to signify how AWESOME they are.

I had to pull off the outboard right tank rib for good clamping access. Looks like I already made a vinyl-removal circle.

I love it when I've already done stuff.

For the cap, the skin is already drilled, so you have to align the cap, then clamp, and use the holes in the skin to matchdrill the cap.

After a good 10 minutes of clamping, checking, reclamping, girlfriend helping to hold, clamping, checking, rechecking, I finally got an alignment I (WE!!!) was (were) happy with.

That's about as good as I'll ever get it.

1 hole drilled. Can't breathe yet.

I was drilling really well today. See this curly-cue? That’s some good speed/pressure during drilling.

That's some good drilling right there.

Finally, I got all...(counting)...10 holes drilled.

A closeup of the alignment (looks like I have some aluminum shavings to clean up).

So, wouldn't it be funny if I hadn't edited this picture, you could see my key number on the lock, you made a copy of the key, and then stole all my Avgas? That wouldn't be funny, so I made sure to edit the picture.

I'm very happy with how this turned out.

It was only 30 minutes worth of work, but having the deluxe fuel caps in there made it look really good.

Possibly more tonight.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 28th, 2011 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Wings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.