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Fuselage boo boo advice

didja

Active Member
I just realized that I accidentally riveted one too many rivets in the tailcone bottom to side skin holes . I have joined the fuse and tailcone. I went to rivet the fuse bottom skin to the tailcone/side skin corner hole and realized it was already riveted between the tailcone bottom skin and tailcone side skin. I have no way of undoing the existing rivet withou completely drilling out every rivet to separate the fuse from the tailcone.

The alternative that I can think of is to drill through the existing rivet and rivet all three skins. The fuse bottom skin is dimpled as it was supposed to be flush mounted. Not sure if I should flatten the dimpled hole and rivet with a 4-4 rivet instead of a 3-3.5 rivet, or try a pop rivet…

Looking for advice. Will try to attach some pictures…
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It would be a hard rivet to drill but not impossible. I would carefully drill it, using a smaller drill bit first and go to 41 or 42 size for the final size. Then grab the shank to separate from the head. One would think that if you remove those cleckos, it will give you enough space to get the rivet head out.
 
Been there...done that...

I got caught by that as well, but I saw it before I installed the rest of the rivets along the bottom of the fuse.

In this case, I would drill it up to a #30 hole, use the pull rivet dimple tool to refinish the hole, then install a NAS1097 (aka "Oops") rivet.

B
 
I would do exactly as Brian has done. Use the pulled dimple die to make the #30 dimple, after you have drilled out the rivet, and set the 426-4 or “OOPS” rivet, then move on, no big deal.
 
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Drill the rivet and use a punch to tap out the shank of the rivet.
You may need to use the deburring tool to release the rivet head from any remaining bits of the shank.
Remove the clecos and use a chip chaser to pull out the remaining rivet head.
You probably won't even need to redimple the hole.
Good luck.
 
Thank you for the advice! I was able to get it drilled out and wedged the skins apart just enough to get the head out! Fuse is finally fully attached to the tailcone!
 
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