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for pine:



The inward bend in the area above and fwd of the left longeron is normal.

Just the way the molds were made. This causes a bad fit with the header

tank, which I chose to fill in with flox. I taped up the header tank joggle

with duct tape, and spread flox on the longeron joggle and molded them

together. In some places, the flox was several mm thick.



I would not use heat to "straighten out" this area. Just use flox to make

the joggle fit together, then use whatever filler you are using on the

exterior to make the exterior blend together. If it makes you feel any

better, I had a lot of trouble with this area, too.

  

The fit of the forward deck to the firewall is not critical, since you will

be applying bid tapes to the forward face of the firewall to support the

deck, once you have it aligned with the cowling. You will have to drill a

couple of temporary holes for clecos in the header tank to longeron joggle

to hold the tank in place while you align it with the cowling. (Of course

the engine and spinner need to be in place to accomplish this.)



When you have everything aligned, you apply duct tape to the underside of

the header tank where it overlaps the firewall, then put in you 2 or 3 bid

tapes up underneath. These will support your header tank and cowling when

they set up.



BTW, I used nutplates and #8 screws to attach my header tank to my

longerons. Due to all the flox buildup on the longeron joggle, the length

of the screws along each side varies by several dash numbers.



--John