Seat Rail Advice

[JonJay]

Two long shot approaches if you can't get something under there to push it up.

If you have a set of adjustable ball gauges you could insert into the hole and perhaps get through the nut plate, expand the gage and abuse it with pliers trying to pull it back square.
My guess is, you don't have ball gauges, you probably won't be able to get it through the nut plate at that angle, and if you did manage to, the nut plate may very well spring back out of square to a point you wouldn't be able to get the screw started anyway.

However, If you do have an adjustable ball gage set, I would at least give it a try, long shot that it is.

You might also try a screw down type Cleko. If (big if) you can get it inserted, you can put quite a bit of force on these if the prongs hold. You would need the exact size to make it work and still the nut plate might spring back a bit out of alignment.

I hate to see unfilled holes. Yes, perhaps over engineered. Perhaps unnecessary. You will never know unless you had an incident that fell just short of "probably toast anyway", or a perfect scenario that tested the rails to their max design criteria where one screw made the difference. Highly unlikely.....

[Richard Connell]

I?m not looking forward to that. It?s obvious that the bend radius tolerances and stack ups of all the parts are going to make those rails a real PITA to install.
I?ve replaced a lot of nutplates with floating ones through this build but neglected the ones that will likely be the worst. Oh well.
I?d go with the socket trick or replacing the nutplate with pop rivets.
FWIW I also riveted AN3 size floating nutplates to the bottom of the gear weldments for the front seat rail bracket bolts (that go on after the gear legs are bolted on)
That makes their installation a lot easier. Putting the nutplates in was pretty straight forward.

[cderk]

I had one like this on each side of my -10. I?m getting close to completion. I drilled mine out and fixed it.

My rationale is this... the DAR is going to inspect the interior - probably with the seats removed. I imagine that if there was a screw missing that was supposed to be there and someone noticed, they?d want you to fix it anyway.

I was able to get in there with my pneumatic squeezer and take care of it easily.

My $0.02 - your mileage may vary

[rvanstory]

Originally Posted by cderk

My rationale is this... the DAR is going to inspect the interior - probably with the seats removed. I imagine that if there was a screw missing that was supposed to be there and someone noticed, they?d want you to fix it anyway.

I hate it when totally rational logic forces me to do something I don?t want to do. Looks like I?ll be replacing 2 nut plates today. With 72 screws in the 4 seat rails, I was sure hoping to justify leaving out 2 of them.

Thanks for all the input!

[Electrogunner]

Originally Posted by cderk

I had one like this on each side of my -10. I?m getting close to completion. I drilled mine out and fixed it.

My rationale is this... the DAR is going to inspect the interior - probably with the seats removed. I imagine that if there was a screw missing that was supposed to be there and someone noticed, they?d want you to fix it anyway.

I was able to get in there with my pneumatic squeezer and take care of it easily.

My $0.02 - your mileage may vary

Charlie,
I'm not sure who you are using for your DAR but the one I used wanted my RV 10 in flying condition. As in he could jump in and take off. So all interior and access panel installed and cowling installed. Basically a pen exercise so don't rely on all DAR's to inspect your aircraft. When I was ready for my airworthiness, I had several mentors and AP's look it over before the expensive pen exercise. I know several DAR's on this forum actually inspect it though.

[rvanstory]

It seems building an airplane is a lot like "life" at times. In this case the anticipation of the challenge was much worse than the challenge itself! Fix took just a little more than an hour. Glad to report, both damaged nutplates are now properly installed and seats rails are attached with all 72 screws!

Thank you contributors for challenging me to do it right!

[cderk]

Originally Posted by Electrogunner

Charlie,
I'm not sure who you are using for your DAR but the one I used wanted my RV 10 in flying condition. As in he could jump in and take off. So all interior and access panel installed and cowling installed. Basically a pen exercise so don't rely on all DAR's to inspect your aircraft. When I was ready for my airworthiness, I had several mentors and AP's look it over before the expensive pen exercise. I know several DAR's on this forum actually inspect it though.

Joe - I?ve been communicating with him, getting things ready. He told me that he will start in the inside. When he moves to the outside, he will ask me to install the seats so that after he?s done outside, we can do an engine run up. He wants access panels and everything basically removed... whole tunnel needs to be open, seats out, rear bulkhead removed, etc.

[Electrogunner]

Originally Posted by cderk

Joe - I?ve been communicating with him, getting things ready. He told me that he will start in the inside. When he moves to the outside, he will ask me to install the seats so that after he?s done outside, we can do an engine run up. He wants access panels and everything basically removed... whole tunnel needs to be open, seats out, rear bulkhead removed, etc.

That?s good to hear you are definitely getting your monies worth there. I had a completely different experience with my DAR. In my case it really didn?t bother me because I already had serval people look everything over multiple times. Like many things, not all DAR?s are created equal.