Most of today was spent catching up on yard work, then an additional chunk of time was spent building a doubler/frame for the oil filler door that it turned out I didn't even need. I don't like the standard Van's approach to the oil filler door hinge and latches, so I had bought a hidden hinge setup and a couple of extra skybolts a while ago. The hinge is a super old design from 30 or 40 years ago, complete with hand drawn plans and instructions. My mistake was not realizing that Van's has changed the cowl since these plans were drawn. The old cowl design had you cut out a hole the same size as the door, meaning a piece of aluminum was needed to ring the opening to act as the backstop for the door. Now, however, Van's has built a shelf into the cowl so the aluminum backer isn't necessary. I should have thought about that, but was on autopilot and just following the plans.
I ultimately ended up chopping up all of my hard work and just using a few pieces for the top and bottom to act as a doubler for the rivets.
I got sidetracked as I was getting ready to drill the skybolts (go in the angled portion at the bottom edge), so that's for another day.
