New floor in U206G, 5Y-CMA

I have been working on installing the floor back into CMA the past few days.  We replaced the old floor with all new skins, bumping them from .032" thickness to .040".  We also put some more stiffeners under the floor on the ribs to help with the often heavy items that pilots put into the airplanes.  You don't necessarily think much about it until you see a guy put 2 or 3 200liter fuel drums FULL into the back of the airplane.  THEN you understand why we beef up the aircraft the way we do.  It's been fairly slow going because it just takes time to shoot a lot of the rivets that are hidden down behind/under/around a stringer where the hole is just barely big enough for my hand to fit through, much less try to balance a bucking bar with my fingertips.  There's been a lot of yelling and many frustrated words have been directed at the airplane, but it's coming along slowly.  I'm also dealing with re-installing a gearbox mod that allows for easier removal of the outboard gear castings in the event that they get cracked.  Below are some pictures of my progress. 

This is about halfway done, maybe.  You can sort of see the outlines where I traced the Brownline seat tracks.  All the stringer rivets that pass under the seat tracks, I made flush so they wouldn't interfere with the tracks.  The same goes for the cargo door sill area (lower right portion), as we install a stainless sill cover to help protect the door sill from damage. 

All the pink circles are where a rivet needs to be flush so that it won't interfere with something else.  The rectangular patch with the inspection hole in it is the gearbox mod. 

This is what it looks like at the beginning.  Some notches were cut in the main bulkheads where the casting can be removed.  To provide the reinforcing strength, some angle pieces are re-installed. 

You can see how it is removed.  Just unbutton the casting and slide it over, pull it up through the notches, and there ya have it...or something like that. :D

So here's the reinforcements installed. 

And the final product with the cover installed.  It really was tough to put all together because the reinforcements are held to the top panel here with rivets and are held to the main gear bulkheads with screws.  It's a bit of a chore...but supposedly is easier than unbuttoning half the floor to pull the casting out that way.  I guess we'll see...with time...

So here I am working on getting the rivets into the gear casting mod.  This was still early in the morning, so no hard feelings had occurred yet. :D

Bangin' some rivets.  I've been using my new Sioux 3X rivet gun that I bought from Brown Tool.  It's pretty nice!  I like it pretty well so far.  Thanks, Jeremy, for the encouragement to get it!