Have you ever been putting your plane back together after annual and are trying to get the upper cowling forward screws and nuts back together and drop one of the nuts into the front of the nosebowl?

This modification will fix that one and for all.

Where the four holes are located at the top back of the nosebowl we are going to install nutplates at this location to make blind captures for the screws we will use later to reassemble.

You will need (4) MS21047L08 nutplates and 8 #40 Countersunk skin rivets.

I have a special MS21047L08 nutplate that I have run a 8-32 tap through several times so that it no longer locks a screw. I use this special one to install on a piece and then can accurately drill the #40 holes for each leg of the nutplate. By using a countersunk 8-32 screw it will always center itself in the hole. NOTE: Be sure and not install this one on a plane! I use a piece of safety wire through it to mark it.

Once the #40 holes are drilled for the nutplate legs, you can check the length of the rivets by seeing how far the rivets extend past the legs.

Once the 2 rivet are squeezed (or bucked) the 4 nutplates will now be ready to catch and hold the screws from the upper cowling and you will not be dropping any hardware into the front baffle again!