RV8 Cowl Piano Hinge - Top to Bottom halves

Would like to hear how others have dealt with the situation with the pin installation for the two hinges on either side of the cowl. There must be some way to facilitate access to the hinge for installing the pin. Does not seem possible with rivets on the most forward 6" of the hinge. All that I can come up with is to replace those first 6 (pairs of) rivets with nutplates. With the screws out, the hinge can be bent out that 3" to come into view through the cowl inlet.
Thanks.
Cliff Dominey
RV8A N977CD (registered!)

Some pics of how I did it here:

http://www.rv8.ch/cowl-hinge-pin-covers/

I don't seem to have any more pictures of the finished cover, but can take some tomorrow if you like. I think it turned out pretty good.

You can kind of see what it looks like without the cover here:



And with the cover



You can see the paint deforming a little around the edges - obviously this is not something I wanted, and happened over time. One day, I'll take it back to the paint shop to get them to fix these imperfections.

For all three builds I have the side pins going into the cowl from the cockpit. This eliminates the pin plate thing on the nose.

Easy enough to do.

Carl

I used a thin SS piece contoured to fit the cowl which hides the pin and has the added benefit of tying the upper and lower together to prevent stress on the hinges.

Thanks to all for your thoughts. Through the firewall does make good sense, except that I have the Skybolts on the firewall, and there is some interference there. Might can make it work. Thx.