RV-9A: Forward Section - 2/2/2009
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 Drilled the first holes into the Firewall
After getting the firewall into position I read in the instructions that the face of the firewall has to be 5/8"s back from the forward edge of the skins. The bottom of the firewall didn't go back far enough, so I had to take the whole apart and shave some more off the ends of the longerons. Apparently trimming the longerons 3/4" back from the front edge of the skins is not enough. Now everything fits OK. Here I'm drilling the first holes in the top skin to establish the distance of the firewall from the middle bulkhead.
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 Getting the side skin and the longerson lined up
Before I can drill any more holes into the firewall, I have to make sure that the longeron holes I drilled the day before still line up with the holes in the side skin. Apparently the weight of the firewall messes up the alignment. So the instructions say to temporary stick some rivets into the skin and into the longersons to force the alignment back into position. OK, head scratching time again. I needed some leverage here. The rivets weren't going to go into the holes without raising the firewall somehow. Then I remembered my adventures with the fuels tanks and forcing it into position with 1/8" clecos. I put some clecos into the holes in the forward end of the skin and into the longeron holes. They won't go all the way in because of the longerons. Then I simply pulled down on the clecos on the forward end. This pushed the longeron up enough to get the first rivet in. Then I just worked my way forward using the leverage of the forward clecos to force the longeron up.
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 Ta-Dah!
I dooded it!
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 Drilled the side skin into the firewall
I started from the bottom and worked my way up. Super Bowl time!
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