Category Archives: Wings

Wing conduit installed

Posted on by

Got the corrugated plastic conduit (purchased from Van’s) installed in both wings. Took a couple of days, and caused a lot of blisters – but it’s done. I decided also to open up some of the rib tooling holes, per Vans’ instructions, to hold additional wiring. Turns out that 7/16″ OD snap bushings (also purchased from Van’s) are the perfect inner diameter (~0.25″) to hold the strobe cable that Whelen sells with their lighting kits, and between enlarged tooling holes and unused 7/16″ holes for the pitot line, I can run strobe cable outside the conduit. That hopefully gives a little electromagnetic separation for reduced stobe noise in the audio system, and also frees up some space in the conduit for additional wiring.

Wing conduit installed

With the conduit installed and the right tank replaced, the wings are now ready to come out of the jig!!!

Ok, so the tanks aren’t completely done

Posted on by

Ok, so the tanks aren’t completely done – in particular, the left one. I was never really happy with the flop tube installation and the ability to properly torque the AN924 bulkhead nut that holds the flop tube in place. So to address this, I pulled the access plate off and drilled out the rivets holding the anti-hangup guide in place.

Using some spare 1/8″ angle I fabricated an anti-rotation bracket similar to that installed in the right tank, eyeballed a location that would allow the flop tube to position correctly in the tank, drilled it to the inboard rib, and riveted it into place.
After that, I reinstalled and safety-wired the flop tube with a new AN elbow fitting and then re-riveted the anti-rotation bracket. A little proseal, a fresh cork gasket and some screws…and the job was complete.

Left tank resealed

Dave, John and Antony

Posted on by

Another rib riveting session, with special guest builder Antony Parchment in attendance. John has been helping both me and Antony do our fuel tanks, and Antony trekked down from Maine to help out. With this session we finished the first two ribs in the left tank.

Dave, John and Antony

Shimmed area on the right wing

Posted on by

I need to crack open the left tank to install an anti-rotation bracket on the flop tube. Waiting for fresh proseal and new AN fittings arrive, I installed the right tank, torqued the tank attach bolts, and installed the tank skin-to-spar screws. The shimmed area on the right wing came out much better than I expected…

Shimmed area on right tank

Started on the aileron spars and reinforcement plates

Posted on by

While waiting for the replacement aileron skin to arrive, I started on the aileron spars and reinforcement plates. The plates are fabricated from 0.040″ sheet, and match-drilled to the aileron spars. The only trick here is making sure that the spar orientation is correct…outboard vs inboard, left vs right.
I also bent the right aileron trailing egde using the bending brake mentioned above. The piano hinge I bought at Home Despot looked to be a good idea at the time, but after a couple of bends I noticed that the hinge eyes were flexing a lot and not squeezing the trailing edge as I would’ve liked. Before I bend the left aileron, I think I’ll replace the piano hinge with regular heavy-duty door hinges.

Ordered new left aileron skin

Posted on by

There were just too many things going wrong with the left aileron skin so I bit the bullet and ordered a new one, plus stiffeners, from Van’s. Chalk the $50 in parts up to experience and practicing patience…

Finished the last riveting that needed to be done

Posted on by

Captain John stopped by today and we finished the last riveting that needed to be done before the wings come out of the jig. With the tanks off, we riveted those inboard leading edge shims in place and I must say they came out very nice. Won’t be able to tell how they worked until the tanks go back on.

Shim in place…

We also finished the last few upper trailing edge rivets, the ones that can’t be squeezed. And with that, the upper skins are completely riveted.

Mis-dimpled aileron

Posted on by

Happy New Year! I celebrated the start of 2008 by doing something that I had managed to avoid in the last three and a half years – I missed a rivet hole while dimpling the aileron skins. Van’s said press on, so that’s what I’m doing for now.

Mis-dimpled aileron