Fairing Brackets Drilled

I had forgotten to actually do the last step of the electrical wing connector installation which is to close up the fuselage side by screwing on the closeout covers. When I tried to do that tonight I realized that aluminum was touching unprimed aluminum and that this would probably be never opened up again.
I decided to remove the covers and prime their outside line that actually touches metal.

You can hardly see it in this picture but the center area is masked off. I will take another picture when I take off the masking tomorrow.

Next I installed the brackets on the nose wheel fairing. I do not like the CCR264 rivets and I was surprised Van's used them for attaching the brackets all along the flanges. They do not appear to be very strong.

I thought the next step was a waste of time but it turned out to be pretty relevant indeed. It was to connect the two halves while the drill template was screwed into place. Then the template was marked along the contact line with the brackets.

The reason why this is important is that it really makes a difference on the contact line with the template if or if not the aft fairing is installed. In my case the aft fairing pulled the brackets outboards and changed where the template would allow me to drill the holes.

I noticed this when I did it the first time, and took the aft fairing off, realizing that I could no longer see the marked line all along the edge of the template. The clamps did obviously not hold the template down tight enough. I did it again and this time I could hold the template in place and I could successfully drill the holes in the right places.

More on the weekend ...