Anyone come up with a good way of bucking the six rivets for the cabin step to the belly skin? My pilot side step broke yesterday. I removed the step and I am not looking forward to reattaching after it gets repaired.

I had a helper, from the opposite door, reach across, down into the floor access and get the bucking bar aligned in there. Your mostly shooting blind so tap softly. Alternatively, you could go with screws.

Screws are a legit way to go IMO. Most floatplanes have them installed with screws so you can take them off every year on the float swap.

Halestorm wrote:Screws are a legit way to go IMO. Most floatplanes have them installed with screws so you can take them off every year on the float swap.

Yeah, I'm considering this as I don't want to go through this again. However, I believe once Tailwheel Tom is done with the step it will outlive me.

We made a couple strips of aluminium for each step that have three nut plates riveted to each of them. I like having them screwed on, and removable for when my floats are installed. Even with the strips, they’re a bugger to re-install. Note that there are hydraulic lines for the amphibious floats in the belly of my fuselage that are in the way of accessing the inside fasteners.

Makes me wonder if this is a good application for the Clickbond nut plates that are glued on.

From my armchair, I’m also thinking that some screws with the heads cut off might be handy for keeping the strips located while the steps and cover plates are switched.