Today I riveted on the bottom cowl hinges. The boe-lube worked well as a release agent, and the clecos came out easily. With the hinges glued in place, I cleaned out the excess resin by running a drill through each hole. Before glueing I inserted the hinge pins, just to help avoid any deformation, and I left them in while riveting.
Progress was swift, and I had the hinges done within half an hour. I went to test fit the cowl, but found I couldn’t get the aft edge hinges to line up with the firewall-mounted hinges. Pushing the cowling back caused the cowling to bend outboard instead of seating into position. I took the cowling off, and realized that I had some excess glue between the hinge eyelets on the left hinge. This happened because I used filler to build up a bed of glue behind the hinge where it interferes with the foam section. I’ll try to clean it up tomorrow somehow.
