The center of the floor in the forward fuselage is where fuel lines and a lot of wiring will route through. There is a cover that fits in between the flooring angle stiffeners to go over the area, as well as tie into the "heating system" on the firewall. Even though I usually don't rivet things together or put on nutplates until after I've primed things, there's really no option in this case. Everything is removable, so held together by screws. Without the nutplates riveted on, fitting things would be a lot more difficult. So I'm continuing on with the approach of just putting a little primer on mating surfaces and assembling what needs to be assembled. I'm going to have a decent pile of assembled parts to prime at some point!
The forward vertical portion of the cover has cutouts on the front and sides to direct heat into the cabin. I bent all of the tabs out a little to better direct air.
It's a little hard to see, but a heat baffle is riveted on just below the vents to direct the air out the vents vs into the center tunnel.
After attaching lots and lots of nutplates, I did a trial fit in the plane.
Next up were the parts that house the fuel selector valve. It was at this point that I paused and just stared at the whole thing...I'm not sure that this setup is right for an injected engine. The fuel boost pump on the injected engine sets in front of the fuel selector valve and needs a housing over it. I'm wondering if the instructions don't call this out, but somewhere sitting in a bag I have different parts that I have to figure out. Time to take a break and sort through piles to see what the deal is.
