Forward Baggage Door Ribs

I began work on the forward baggage door today and immediately ran into a problem. The F-873B and F-873C ribs are not symmetric and as a result the F-873C rib is shorter than the F-873B rib. The two ribs have different curves. This results in the F-873C rib not being long enough to reach the last hole in the baggage door skin.

Here are some photos showing what I'm talking about:





Has anyone encountered this before? By the way, my kit is the original kit, not the -1 version.

They are different...

I usually found that if something didn't fit, I was trying to put it together wrong.

Try moving the parts, turning over the skin etc. and see if there's a combination that works. Usually it's a eureka moment!

Hope it works....

I just got off the phone with Ken at Van's...his suggestion is don't worry about it, make sure the door fits the fuse. Make it work.

Issue Solved

I finally figured out what the issue was. The baggage door is not a perfect rectangle. It is 23" on one side the door and 23-1/8" on the other side. The pre-punched rivet holes are also in slightly different places on each side of the door. Of course, Vans didn't note this anywhere, but this means that only one side of the door can be fitted facing out. The longer side of the door is on the forward side by the firewall.

I'll have to buy two new ribs now since the holes I drilled (carefully following Vans crappy instructions) do not match the pre-drilled holes in the door.

I hope this helps someone else

I built mine using the door cut out from the forward top skin panel, not realizing there was a pre-punched door skin in the bottom of the parts box.

Baggage Door

This project took me two tries to get the door to fit perfectly. Where it mates with the fuselage on the lower side, the skin needs to be gently rolled. It is way easier to do that before you rivet it together. Lots of bend and fit and bend and fit will reward you with a tight closure. I think I used some subtle seam rolling on the bottom to complete the shaping.

Anyway, patience is really the key to this particular part of the build.

My baggage door fit is imperfect and I'm NOT building another! It will have to be corrected with a bit of filler at paint time.

The reason is, I thought that door was going to kill me! There I was, all alone in a cold hanger last winter, on my back inside the fuselage, wriggled myself up towards the firewall with my hands trapped above my head trying to drill and rivet the inner skin on with the crotch strap mount stabbing me in the back! I was convinced I was going to get stuck and they'd discover my frozen carcass days later! That was the absolute most painful part of the build for me. Never again! (course if I do have to build another, I'd take the crotch strap bracket out first....)

DanH said:

I built mine using the door cut out from the forward top skin panel, not realizing there was a pre-punched door skin in the bottom of the parts box.

Click to expand...

I did what Dan did. I decided the gap was too big but couldn't find the pre-punched panel. I ordered a new one.

Thirty days later I found the original one all primed and ready to go. Sheesh!

Don