I received the replacement forward firewall gusset from Van's. I went through the same process as I had before to lay out the holes, but the big difference was the fact that I had already drilled a few holes in the longeron with the original gusset. That's when I had discovered the issue with the edge distance on the engine mount bracket when using the measurements from Van's. So this time I cheated the holes over as far as possible to use every last bit of space on the engine mount bracket. Because there were already a couple of holes drilled in the longeron, I had to match drill those to the gusset from underneath, which was easier said than done.
I may kick myself later, but for some reason the plans have you wait to install the aft bulkhead until the top skins are on. Given that I already match drilled the skins to the bulkhead, I don't see any reason to wait to rivet the bulkhead to the aft deck. It'll be far easier to rivet it now while I have easy access, rather than deal with it when the top skin is in the way. I think I explained this before, but my aft deck is slightly off center, so the pre-punched holes in the forward flange don't match up perfectly to the holes in the bulkhead. Van's said that it's no big deal, and to just drill new holes in between the pre-punched ones. Once I had drilled those, I didn't like leaving the pre-punched holes empty, purely because someday if I sell the plane it would raise eyebrows to see a bunch of empty holes, and people would wonder if there were missing rivets. So purely for aesthetic reasons, I went ahead and put rivets in all of the holes (the new holes are the structural ones - the pre-punched ones are not since the holes became oblong when match drilling them due to the offset).
The proseal attaching the static ports is cured now, so I started playing around with how I would set up the static lines. The left and right ports need to be connected, then a single line taken forward to the ADAHRS box, which I'll probably mounted between the J stringers behind the baggage area. I used 90 degree elbows at the ports, then a T fitting on the left side. What I need to figure out still is how to stabilize that T fitting. It has a hole to mount it using a bolt, but as luck would have it, it is right where one of the bolts holding the seat belt anchors goes. At first I just fabricated a piece of angle, but then realized there would be no room for both the seatbelt anchor bolt and the T fitting bolt. I'll have to keep thinking about that. I won't attach any of this permanently until the top skins are on anyway, because it would all get in the way of bucking the skin rivets.
There are very few instructions for the build anymore (the static stuff isn't even called out in the plans, at least not that I've seen yet - maybe later?), but I figured I should have some supports for the tubing as it goes forward. I drilled out two rivets that were in place to hold the side skins to the longeron until the top skins are on. I fabricated two little angle brackets and riveted them in those locations. The brackets have a 3/8" hole and a snap bushing. I'll run the tubing forward and through a similar hole in the next bulkhead, then to the ADAHRS box.
I took a breather and thought about that T fitting mount - I decided that the fitting really didn't need to be parallel to the skin. The tubing has to go from the T to underneath the longeron, so it's actually better if the T has a bit of an angle to it to help with that transition. That means that the bolt hole in the fitting can be angled backwards - hopefully enough to help clear the seatbelt anchor bolt. It's hard to explain. I took a piece of paper and did some origami to figure out how to clear as much space for the anchor bolt/nut as possible and still have a spot to bolt the T fitting. This is what I came up with:
I cut out the shape, drilled the two bolt holes and bolted the T fitting to the mount. Getting to the seatbelt anchor nut underneath the longeron is still going to be tight, but I think it's doable now. This might be overkill, since I've seen people use these T fittings without any support at all, but it seems like a solid mount will lessen the chance of a leak since the vertical tube from the other side comes in at a bit of an angle. The mount will position the fitting vs forcing the tubing to position the fitting by itself.
