Cowl piano hinges

[dhusk]

I'm riveting the fuse together, before "rolling the canoe." Before riveting the firewall to the side skins and bottom skin, I realized that the cowling must attach there. I found reference to leaving out rivets for the piano hinges, but couldn't find which rivets are to be left out.

I searched the archives, but couldn't find a reference to these rivets. I did find lots of references to using camlocks, instead of the hinges. For now I want to stick to the plans and go with the piano hinges.

Can someone point me to the drawing or instructions about which rivets to leave out?

Thanks.

[godspeed]

My quickbuild came with pop rivets holding the firewall in place , to be drilled out when putting the hinges.. so my take on the is none.. leave them with temp fasteners for now...

Danny

[JimP]

At your point, leave all the rivets out for the skins to firewall. Just cleco for now. If you use hinges for the sides, you'll use almost all of them for hinge attachment, either upper or lower. There are some along the bottom you can possibly do, but until you figure out hinges or cam-locs, just leave them all out for now.

Jim

[dhusk]

Thanks. We discussed leaving clecos in place and riveting when we're ready to put the piano hinges in. That's what we'll do.

[mikehoover]

Should the cowling hinges be riveted to the firewall/sideskins before installing the engine mount. Looks like it might be tough to get some of the rivets bucked due to the engine mount being in the way. Thanks!

[flion]

I think you want to do them after the mount because you may need to shim and adjust for the cowling, which needs the engine in place for proper positioning. Like many things on a kit, there is no hard and fast answer, though. I used camlocs and riveted the camloc strips with the mount in place, using a modified bucking bar in the tight spots. It might have been easier to rivet but harder overall to remove the mount and engine before riveting. That wouldn't be the first time on a project, though, that I had to undo something in order to do something else. In fact, I still have to remove the wheels and brakes in order to reinstall the pant brackets. Just when you think you're done...

[Jeff R]

Leave the firewall clecoed in as long as possible. It makes installing the cockpit fuel lines and vent lines soooooo much easier if you can remove the firewall.

[Ken]

Attaching the engine to the engine mount is the more difficult. Once that is done it is very easy to remove the mount from the firewall with the engine attached. Suggest you use hardware store bolts to bolt the mount to the firewall until you are ready for final installation. You can remove or install the engine in 5 minutes with no connections. Install battery, heater, electrical on firewall, etc. and wait to connect things to engine. This way you can remove the engine to drill and rivet as needed.

Ken