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I started off measuring everything on the firewall again and then finally drilled the two holes on either side of the bottom of the firewall to lock it in place. I then fumbled around with the fit of the upper bracket in the longeron. It just wasn’t fitting well. I won’t detail all of the iterations, but I ended up trimming the longeron back another 1/8″ because it was interfering with the bracket, and then clamped it together with a piece of 2×2 nested inside the bracket to give a better clamping surface.
Before drilling, I made the F-704L straps as a break from the firewall fitting and had dinner. After dinner and a bunch more measuring, I went for it. I drilled up (or downward relative to the plane) on both sides of the firewall. I looked ahead in the instructions and didn’t see any mention of when the bottom flange should be drilled, so I went ahead and drilled it along with the bottom angle. And then after more deliberation, I finally drilled the longerons to the upper firewall brackets. I spent more time measuring and examining than anything else, but I’d rather not mess up this part. It turned out great.
