Wings


Wings 25 (0.5 hrs)

I regret not taking pictures during the assembly of the stall warning, however I have several pictures of the completed product.  In the last shop session, I countersunk and primed the required parts, so today was quick. I riveted the two nutplates and put the assembly together. A few notes for anyone assembling this part below. 20140608-092539-33939116.jpgVan’s instructs you not to over torque this bolt.  The stall warning vane must move freely so you can’t over tighten.  Avoid over tightening the other two bolts as well. 20140608-092537-33937379.jpg

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20140608-092603-33963867.jpgAlso, don’t forget to ensure your grounding wire has a good contact point.  I used a little scotchbrite to remove the primer. 20140608-092608-33968052.jpg

20140608-092606-33966084.jpgI wanted to install the assembly in the leading edge today, but found that there is currently interference between the skin and the vane.  I will need to play around with the bracket alignment and possibly do a little more filing for clearance during the next session.


Fuel Tanks 25 (3.5 hrs)

Today’s primary task was to remove the sealant around the previous fuel tank baffle. Removing proseal isn’t fun, and requires a fair amount of sweat to accomplish.  I did a fair amount of research on the forums in advance and here are my tips for removing proseal.

  • Purchase some tough plastic scrapers like the ones pictured below from harbor freight.  They’ll allow you to scrape the proseal without scratching the aluminum. Additionally, you can easily resharpen the plastic with the scotchbrite wheel.  Sharp edges help substantially.
  • Next you can use a combination of scotchbrite pads, heat, MEK, and the scrapers to continuously work down the remaining sealant.  I personally didn’t use heat as I found it too time consuming for such a large sealant removal job.  I did use scotchbrite and MEK.
  • A couple iterations of scraper – MEK – scotchbrite seems to do the trick!

Here are the tools I bought at Harbor Freight. The scrapers are for the proseal removal. The pneumatic angle grinder and sanding discs are for the wing skin scarf joints. 20140608-092051-33651371.jpgHere is a “before picture” of the baffle proseal.20140608-092054-33654536.jpg20140608-092053-33653091.jpgAnd a picture after the first round of scraping.20140608-092138-33698134.jpgAfter the first scotchbrite / MEK run….20140608-092136-33696572.jpgAnd the final product!20140608-092154-33714130.jpg

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20140608-092155-33715728.jpgInstalling the baffle isn’t terribly difficult, nor is it a lengthy project.  Which means this tank is almost complete… for the second time!

 


Wings 24 (5.0 hrs)

Five weeks is a long time to go without working on my priority project, but life intervened. In the past month my wife graduated law school, her parents visited for two weeks, I was the best man for a wedding, threw a bachelor party and we moved to Sykesville, Maryland! In all that commotion, the plane sat untouched. The plane is still in the old shop, and I plan to move it to my hangar at DMW as soon as the tanks, leading edges, and top skins are attached.  I do not want to have to re-fabricate my wing stand at the hangar.

First up on today’s docket was to clean up the shop and reacquaint myself with my current tasks.  Shop clean up took quite awhile as I had left the shop in a messy state.

Here is a photo of the new baffle I received from Van’s.  I will need to remove a good amount of the old pro-seal and reinstall.  The rivet problem is still an issue with the other tank but I’ll need the laptop to use the “borescope” USB camera I have.20140601-202341-73421195.jpg

Mike Bullock lent me his straight rivet set for the leading edges.  This works well for a solo job, but as you will see below, I’m not happy with my results.20140601-202346-73426237.jpgI used some duct tape to protect the ribs during riveting. 20140601-202348-73428695.jpg

The following photos of the rivets that connect the leading edge ribs to the spar run outward to the wing tips.  (Right to left in the photo below)20140601-202506-73506484.jpg

There are multiple smiley face rivets I’m not entirely happy with.  I have marked most with arrows. Most, I do not believe need to be drilled out, but there are a few that might need to be.  The lack of clearance between the rivet heads and the rib was very challenging.  I’m not sure what else I could do to solve the problem. 20140601-202707-73627324.jpg20140601-202718-73638505.jpg20140601-202740-73660162.jpg20140601-202845-73725907.jpgHere is the worst one.  This one smacked the spar pretty good.  Pretty ugly.20140601-202923-73763572.jpg20140601-202935-73775223.jpg

After completing all of the remaining riveting on the right leading edge, I set about working on the stall warning installation on the left wing’s leading edge.  First, I riveted the access doubler in place. 20140601-202517-73517950.jpg

Then I installed the bushing in the spar’s tooling hole by enlarging with a step bit. 20140601-202529-73529560.jpg20140601-202531-73531210.jpg

Finally, I began putting together the actual pieces that make up the stall warning unit. A number of countersinks later…20140601-202544-73544260.jpgThe last thing I did for the day was prime the stall warning parts. The green epoxy primer I have dries really quickly.  Unfortunately, the cheap grey self-etching primer does not.  By doing it last, it will have at least a week to dry before I’m at the shop again.20140601-202546-73546219.jpg

All in all its been a rough couple of months for the project.  The fuel tank mistake was my worst mistake yet and has cost me a lot of time to fix. And its not even fixed yet!  Then the lack of time has further hampered my progress.  Regardless, its good to be back to the shop and hopefully I can get all these tasks cleaned up and the kit down to Westminster.