C

Catbird

Well Known Member
Well, I've finally gone and done it. In a cloud of dust last night just before midnight, I quickly riveted up the two little step floor sections just ahead of the seats. Admiring my progress as the dust cleared, I noticed clecos inside the cavity under one floor panel. These aren't just loose clecos rattling around in there. They're connecting the forward bulkhead to the bottom skin. UGH!!!

Fiddled around for about 15 minutes before accepting the painful reality that there is no absolutely way to get the pliers on these trapped clecos. Since the barbs protrude through the bottom skin and are easily accessable, I'm leaning toward trying to grind them off with a miniature Dremel cut-off wheel and hope the clecoes will let go and fall out (or in).

Is anyone out there willing to admit to experience in removing clecos the hard way?
 
Yeah, I am. I whipped up some aluminum fairings for my brake calipers on the Emeraude which has cherokee pants. Being a real conservative guy, I clecoed them on & went flying. While up there doing speed runs (misnomer) I noticed.. hey, it's actually slower. When I got down they were bent straight out like air brakes & most of the clecos were adios. Lord looks after drunks, fools & me.
 
Ran home from the office during lunch break and attacked the wayward clecos again with the Dremel cutoff wheel. Within ten minutes, had all four of them out, although they were all casualties with their barbs cut off. A few circular grind marks on the skin around the holes, but not bad enough propogate a crack or weaken the connection.

I'll try to be a little more careful to avoid abusing my clecos in the future. Wouldn't want to wind up in the pokey over something like that.
 
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