Then I set up the squeezer for setting the rivets on the z-brackets. I will say that these are a bit tricky as space is limited and you cannot get the rivet centered on the squeezer dies which in my opinion reduces your chances of getting well set rivet. I ended up having to drill out three rivets at the very start. Of course i'm rusty as I haven't squeezed rivets in a while, but I quickly picked it back up. In the end....I am short 4 nutplates. 3 were ruined when I had run a tap through them for drilling the nutplate attachment holes (I just didn't want to risk using those) and I threw out the 3 that I ended up drilling out. I found that they had a slight bow in them (after the first round of squeezing) so again, I didn't want to reuse them. I quickly placed an order to Aircraft Spruce for extra nutplates as well as 50 more AN3-4A bolts, washers, and nuts. (I do not plan to re-use any bolts or nuts after initial fitting in the off chance that I have over torqued them and compromised their structural integrity...and for a few cents a piece....why take that chance).
Setting the rivets for the inboard z-bracket took some head scratching. In hind sight I should have set these back when I was doing all the nutplates on the spar. I remember thinking then about doing these, but opted not to as all the other build sites and instructions left it for later. Doing it now presents some accessibility challenges. In the end I found that back-riveting them was the best way I could do it. I tried bucking them with a bar on the shop head side, but there is risk of damaging the spar doubler. Most of my back rivet sets have a thick plastic collar with the exception of my long 12" back rivet set from cleveland tools which has a thin plastic collar which allows me to get the tool into the nutplate. Using a bucking bar on top as a back-rivet stop, setting the rivets is fairly easy.
