This weekend I spent a few hours working on the plane. I wanted to get some specific things done in order to make a little progress towards fitting the wings.

I spent the day installing the fuel tank attach bracket to the outside of the fuselage. This required fabricating the internal support bracket and spacers. It took a little longer than I though, but got it done.

After taking these pictures, I buffer and then primed the brackets. These are steel so they are very susceptible to corrosion. Now that these are installed. I can prep to mount and test fit the wings!

After this I spent an hour or so finishing up the exhaust hangar modification. I didn’t take any pictures, but because I’m using the Vetterman 4 pipe exhaust and the heat muff, the standard Vans exhaust hanger can’t be used on that side. So I fabricated a support bar that shifts the hangar mounting point outboard of the heat muff. I finished it by drilling the bolt hole for the mount and attaching it with all metal lock nuts.

I also removed the bolts for the exhaust attaching it to the engine in preparation for riveting the firewall to the bottom skin where the exhaust exits the cowl. This isn’t accessible when the exhaust it attached to the engine.