Finishing Empennage Attach

I'm close to finishing the empennage attachment. It will come off for deburring and priming of parts that get permanantly attached and painting but most of the alignment and final drilling (reaming) is done. The picture below doesn't show how big and tall the tail looks. Paula passed it and said "pretty, it's looking like an airplane".

Made the Elevator Push Tube

I finished the elevator push tube. It goes from the elevator control horns to a bellcrank behind the baggage bulkhead. The bellcrank attaches to another push tube which goes under the floor to the bottom of the control column. Then you can pull back to make the houses smaller. Van's sent the wrong size bearing that goes on the end so I have to order the correct size. Then I can finish fitting and move on to the vertical stabilizer and rudder.

Attached Horizontal Stabilizer and Elevators

Here, I've attached the horizontal stabilizer to the tailcone. All the bolts are in and the incidence is set to 0 degrees and leveled side to side. The bolts are not torqued yet as everything will come off to paint.

Drilling the proper holes took a lot of careful measuring and cross checking to make sure I hit the center of the longeron. I think I measured them 10 times before I drilled! Turned our great.

Started the Upper Aft Fuselage Skin

Again with the help of Austin's long arms, we started riveting the upper aft fuselage skin. The blue tape is there to make a pretty rivet head. Not necessary but looks nice and shiny with no scuffs before I paint.

Attached Shoulder Harness Anchors

With the help of Austin's long arms, we attached and torqued the shoulder harness anchors. If you look closely, you can see the orange torque seal on one of the nuts.

Clips for Pitot Static Tubing

Here, I'm making some clips that support the tubing for the pitot static tubing. They will go under and attach to the longeron. Only took a few minutes to make a wood block with a notch that forms the clip over a 1/4 drill bit.

 

I also had a visitor in the garage while I was making the clips. Comfy chair with footstool, a glass of wine, a book and an ipod with earphones is apparently all it takes to make it tolerable.
 

I finished the clips and installed them on the underside of the longeron to hold the static line. Instead of fighting with them when I rivet the upper skin, I drilled out the keeper rivets that hold the side skins to the longerons and added the clips. Makes it neat and secure.

 

Wing Root Fairing Nutplates

I finished the wing root fairing nutplates. This is where the fairings that cover the gap between the inboard most part of the wing and the fuselage attach. Not terribly difficult but I did have to remove some of the proseal on the tanks to allow the nutplats to sit flat against the inside of the tank skin. Used my angle grinder with the maroon sanding pad. Also, the plans are confusing as the fairing is laid out flat with no iso view.

Chapter 958 Comes to the Rescue!

I needed to remove the wings as a normal sequence to the build and I knew I needed help. Austin and I were able to put the wings on by ourselves but I knew we couldn't remove them. So, I invited my EAA Chapter to my house after our scheduled Saturday meeting and I bribed them with the promise of a free lunch. I have to admit I was a little nervous having others handle MY airplane. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. The guys were extremely careful, amazingly proficient and FAST! I went inside to get the burgers to put on the grill and when I came out, they had already removed one wing and were working on the other.

One thing I was worried about was removing the lower wing bolts. I had read horror stories about them getting stuck and all the problems folks went through to finally remove them. I even made a special tool to use. The guys would have none of that. They left the two upper bolts in to keep everything aligned and then wiggled the wing and Stan just reached in a pulled them out.

Here's Phil. He's probably looking at the clecos I forgot to remove that hold the bottom of the wing to the belly skin.

Here are the guys about to lift the left wing.

Left wing done, on to the right wing.

Right wing being removed. Where's lunch!

After everyone had eaten lunch and departed, I told Paula how much help everyone was and how much they did and how much I appreciated it so she asked if they could come back every weekend. I don't think they can but I did tell her I'm on call for about a dozen favors I need to return.

Cheap Wheel Dolly

Here are my cheap wheel dollies for moving the airplane around in the garage. At Harbor Freight they are $7.99 with a coupon. They're the small furniture dolly that is rated at 1000lbs.  All I did is cut a notch in the 2x4s for the wheels to ride in and screwed them to the bottom with deck screws. Fifteen minutes. Not bad.

I also scalloped the corners of the 2x4s so the wheels could pivot.

Main Wheels

I assembled the main wheels. They are a split hub type with a tube. Really beautiful workmanship. I used a lot of talcum powder to make sure the tube doesn't pinch and promised Paula I'd vacuum it all up after I was done. It was nice working inside.

Pitot-Static System

I've installed the two static ports and attached the lines. The pitot-static system measures pressure differential and uses the difference to determine airspeed and altitude. The static ports are in an undisturbed part of the airflow on the outside of the fuselage and measure a consistent pressure unaffected by airspeed. The pitot tube under the wing takes in ram air pressure as it increases with speed and the airspeed instruments compare it to the static pressure to determine airspeed. The altimeter uses the static pressure to compare it to a known sealed pressure and the difference is altitude on the altimeter or rate of change in the VSI.

Rudder Pedals and Brake Lines

I'm finishing the rudder pedals and brake lines.

The VA-118-1 steel braded brake lines touch the angle stiffner on the back of the firewall so I called Vans. They said just sleeve it with some plastic tubing and it will be fine. They said it doesn't move enought to cause a problem.

Here's the brake reservoir on the firewall and the template I used to make accurate holes.