![Shocked 8O](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
A look on the inside with a borescope revealed that particular portion of the bulkhead flange to have no rivets in the holes and the flange not even seated on the skin, but get this: the two rivets with missing heads had partially formed shop heads UNDER the flange.
![Shocked 8O](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
![Shocked 8O](./images/smilies/icon_eek.gif)
Seeing as how most of the rivets in this bulkhead are 5/32, and the same rivets in my ‘55 170B are 1/8, I assume this bulkhead has been either replaced or re-riveted sometime in the past, though I haven’t yet searched the logs to see when or by whom.
An AI who lives a few doors down from me is helping us with correcting this issue, and so far we’ve been able to drill out the the shanks of the two headless rivets, then remove the tails with a chip chaser, working through the inspection hole on top of the fuselage to the right of the vertical stabilizer. We thought it would be a good idea to get these two rivets replaced before removing existing rivets on up the side. We’ve been able to pull that lowest two-hole section of bulkhead flange against the skin with wingnut clecos, but since these rivets are in the lower left radius of the fuselage skins, in the tight area just to the left of the bellcrank bracket, we haven’t been able get a bucking bar located adequately, at least by the Braille method through that same inspection hole.
We’ve removed the baggage bulkhead cover and it looks like we might be able to get a better shot at it by going down the tailcone, once we get adequate support and padding back there to lay on. Does anyone who has done this before have any tips to offer regarding access, bucking bars, etc? We’ve thought about using cherrymaxes for these two hardest to reach rivets, but our AI is unable to find any guidance that says they can be used in this area.