Lindy
9/15/2007
Long work day, and lots-o-pics! I started out early this morning by making the shims that fit between the HS and the aft deck. Easy little buggers.
And here is where they go-
There are two bolts that go on each side, and that shim is used for both of them.
Before drilling could commence, I had to make sure that the HS is evenly placed on the airplane. To do this, I picked the aft fuselage to center fuselage skin overlap as a common point. Then I taped two measuring tapes to the corner of each side, and ran it to the skin overlap.
This worked very well, and was easy to check and recheck, then recheck it again...and again...you get my point. I also clamped everything down, and made slight adjustments as needed.
I measured the holes to be drilled next. In my case, I measured and rechecked it probably sixteen times before I committed my hand to the drill.
The blue lines represent where the hole actually got drilled. I measured to find the middle of the longeron angle, which is 3/4" wide. The bolt needs to be centered in the middle of the 5/8" of available horizontal angle, so I found the middle, then moved the line over 1/8" to represent the vertical portion of the longeron angle. make sense? Worked for me!
I drilled the left side first to #30, then put a #30 bit in the hole to make sure it stayed true while drilling the other side...cleco's won't reach thru all the material in this case. I then enlarged the holes to #20, then to 3/16".
Here are the outside bolts in place.
The inside bolts were positioned a little closer to the center of the 714 angle, and I drilled them from the bottom with an angle drill attachement. The outside bolts have to be drilled from the top, and because of that, they are a slight bit forward of center because the top angle (F-710 I think) is somewhat in the way. Still plenty of edge distance here.
Oh, here's a pic the bottom of the outside bolt before I drilled for the inside bolt.
After those are snugged up with scrap bolts and nuts, you use a 3/16" bit (or two as I did) to set the incidence to zero degrees. Pretty slick idea!
The holes thru the vertical bars and rear spar are then drilled using the vertical bar as a guide.
HS is set, and the elevators were pinned back on.
I didn't take a picture of it, but I then installed the elevator bellcrank in the 706 bulkhead area.
Then I got started on the elevator push-pull tube. Van's actually strongly encourages primer to be used inside of this tube because it will be sealed, and there is no way to inspect it down the road, so I will do so. I cut the tube, then sprayed copious amounts of primer in each end, and twirled it to cover the inside of the tube.
While waiting for that to dry, I got started on a couple of the items from 'The List' that I've compiled. This is a list of things that need to be done before the top skins are put on, and things there are not really any instructions for. First, I went back and set the two Cherry Max rivets that replaced the universals that I drilled out when we put the wings on.
I didn't know there would be interference when I set them originally. No big deal, but a blind rivet is all that can be used here since my aft seat pans are already riveted in place.
Then I drilled the hole in the bottom of the pilot's control stick for the push to talk wiring in the stick grip, and installed a grommet.
The rudder cables come thru the aft fuselage thru a nylon bushing. This is clamped to the fuselage with an Adel clamp, a screw and a nut.
The static system is much easier to install now while access is still wide open. To start this, I found the SafeAir kit that I bought long ago, and read the instructions. First thing is to drill a hole for the static ports, one on each side. I plan to install these with sealant instead of rivets.
Brit came home around this time, so it was time to start wrapping things up for the day. I stopped on the static system install so I could get the elevator push-pull tube primed, and brought back inside.
Told ya there were a lot of pictures!
I hope to get another good day in tomorrow...
7.25 hours