Section: smoke tank
Hours: 5

Today I worked out how to mount the smoke oil tank. The tank is designed to nicely fit in the space behind the passenger seat and comes with flanges. I'm not sure if I will want to have the tank permanently installed so I added nut plates to the bolt mount positions. I equally spaced 4 bolts at the top of the tank where it abuts the cross cabin seat back bar. On the floor, I located the bolts as close as possible to the underlying floor support ribs.

Putting in the nut plates under the baggage floor was one of those jobs I wish I had done before riveting down the floor. Unfortunately I didn't know how the tank would mount when I was doing that work. I couldn't squeeze my hand and arm far enough in to get to the two nut plates closest to the side of the cabin. After trying to use different tweezers, sticks and wires to get the nut plates into place I came up with the idea of using a magnet. The magnet held the nut plate to the baggage floor while I maneuvered it into place. I was able to insert clecos and then used pull rivets to permanently affix the nut plates.