Drilling Tank Z brackets   September 22nd, 2007

The tank is attached to the wing with a bunch of screws around the edge (both to the spar and to the leading edge). In addition, there are 7 aluminum brackets that hold the tank secure to the spar. These come undrilled, so you have to measure and drill the holes that will hold the bracket-to-spar screws, as well as the bracket-to-tank rivet holes.
The first step is to mark a line down the center of one of the flanges:

Once the first hole is drilled, you use the holes in the spar as guides to drill the other two holes. Rather than place the bracket on top (where it should be) and drill from the bottom, I placed the bracket on the bottom, and drilled it from the top. This way I had better control of the drill, and I could clearly see the centerline. I used a big C-clamp I bought at Harbor Freight for about $1 to hold the bracket in place…

The result is a bracket with the holes nicely matching the spar holes..

And here is the spar with the first z-bracket drilled and clecoed to it… 6 more to go on this wing..

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