After I fabricated my trap door for the 2nd inboard rib, I got some feedback from Bill in nearby Kansas City stating that I should close up the larger hole in the center of the rib and to check out Bobby Hester's (Nov 16, 2002 log entry) web site as he closed the rib hole up on that rib.

Always asking twice and riveting once, I shot an e-mail off to Van's to double check the constructive feedback offered by Bill.  Here is that correspondence:

So after giving all this new information some time to sink in, I decided that I probably wouldn't be doing any "knife edge" flying, however, I am installing a flop tube to open up the plane to being able to utilize its aerobatic personality.  Therefore, I decided to install the plate to cover up the rib hole (since it would be difficult or impossible to do later).

I just fabricated a plate larger than the rib hole and countersunk it to accept AN426AD3-3.5 rivets.  This was kind of a problem in that I wanted to use AN470 rivets, but I didn't have any that were short enough.  I didn't think that it was really necessary to countersink and install flush rivets, but they were the shortest I had.  I did look at a rivet cutter, but couldn't justify the expense for just a couple of rivets.  Maybe I will buy at some later date...

The hole to the right is the capacitance sender mounting hole.  And YES, the spacer washers do clear the plate.  I had to check when typing this entry as the cover plate looks pretty close in the picture.  I hate it when I have those "ooohhh-crap" insights after the fact.

The rest of the night was spent roughing up the rib flanges and tank skin in preparation for riveting them in (finally).  No pictures...   Pretty boring stuff.  Tonight I realized that I have really under estimated all this miscellaneous tank work.  I had hoped to be done with the tank about 2 weeks ago.