One of the issues I ran into was a misalignment in the holes between the lower longeron and the firewall attach bracket on the right side of the airplane. Everything looked fine on the left side of the plane; I’m not sure where the issue came from on the right side. I talked to Sterling at Vans and he suggested what I was already thinking: I’ll need to make a shim to bring the holes back into alignment. This is a high stress area so slotting the holes is not a good option.
To start the fix, I removed the bolts and slipped the thickest piece of sheet metal that would fit between the parts. I used a .040 thick section. I also installed the rivets temporarily to ensure everything was properly aligned.
Here’s how the part came out after making the outline. The holes are just going to be clearance fits, so their positions can be relatively sloppy.
I cut the part and primed it with self-etching primer. Looking good.
