2 hours
Continuing with the glare shield installation. I got the glare shield drilled to the firewall angle, which was kind of a pain because the flange at the top of the firewall blocked most of it. I pretty much had to do one hole at a time, cleco'ing and un-cleco'ing all the holes around it to allow me to bend the firewall forward and get at the hole, while still keeping everything positioned.
While I was at it, I went ahead and fixed a goof I made a long time ago when I trimmed the upper firewall, that left a big gap above each engine mount block, I used some scrap stainless steel sheet and whipped up two little squares to fit around the angle and fill the gap. I'll seal this all up with fireproof RTV later when I install everything for good.
After that was figured out, I drilled the rest of the underside of the glare shield to the upper longerons. Most of the holes were easy to access with long bits, but there were five on each side that were blocked by the rudder pedal mount brackets. This ended up being a huge pain.
I could have probably done a real nice job if I felt like ordering some tools, but I didn't feel like waiting so I made do with what I could find at Home Depot. What I picked up was this angle adapter and a couple hex drive 3/32" and 1/8" bits.
This setup resulted in the shortest total length I could come up with without having to order anything online. I found some hex drive "stubbby bits" on Amazon, but these just barely fit and I didn't feel like waiting!
This angle adapter was a little hard to hold straight, and it got pretty hot after a few holes, but it did what I needed it to. Anyway, after all that I eventually got the whole glare shield drilled and updrilled.
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