June 2015 - tailwheels

Odd and ends

On June 27, 2015

this has been the longest gap in building so far. Hopefully there are not too many more of these. I spent a few hours today getting some little things wrapped up. I got the aileron cables installed, root rib riveted in, fuel cap assembly finished, and got the pitot tube assembly fitted up. My kit uses the new style pitot tube from RANS.

The next steps are getting the pitot/static lines ran as well as the flap cable I also need to run some fuel lines before I start installing some skins that will make access to the wing more restricted than it is presently. Hoping July will have some more building in it.

(3 h)

Miscellaneous wing stuff

By Ryan

On June 7, 2015

In S-20

Today capped off a few tasks I was doing over the past week. First was some work with the the fuel cap assembly. I modified the retainer that goes in the fuel tank and the fuel cap assembly to a #11. I also modified a few other parts for the assembly and then fitted them together with the cap assembly in order to transfer drill through them. I still need to drill the hole for the fuel vent because I didn’t have a 25/64″ drill bit. Once that is done, the cap assembly will be pretty much ready for the final installation.

The next big step was finally getting all the stringers and ribs riveted. I had been waiting to do this because I did not have the parts to do the aileron bell crank. Some aileron cables were not formed correctly from the factory, so I’m waiting to get the correct ones before I rivet in the root rib. Once that is riveted in, I can get the rest of the fuel tank fittings installed and start working on the leading edge skins. I did make some mistakes here that I don’t think will be an issue. The leading edge rib clips had called for AN-42 rivets and the trailing edge called for AN-43’s. In some lapse of understanding I used AN-43’s on the leading edge clips as well. I realized it once I saw how few AN-43 rivets were left and the fact that I still had a whole other wing to do. The 43’s are longer than the 42’s and that appears to be the only difference.

Getting closer every day,

(4 h)

Aileron Bellcrank

By Ryan

On June 3, 2015

In S-20

Finally got a backordered part I needed to assemble the aileron bellcrank. I was waiting to finish this before moving on with the wing so I didn’t get too far ahead of myself. It was pretty straight forward. I had an issue with getting the bearings into the mounting blocks. I spent an hour and a half getting one in and then gave up on the other one since it was getting late. The next day I asked around and found that these are much easier to do with something like a vice. Since I had no vice, I went out and bought one. I also needed it to clamp the bellcrank together so I could drill some holes through it.

Then I bolted it to the bellcrank brace in the wing. I over torqued the nuts the first go around and the arm didn’t move freely at all. I figured out what I did wrong and on went new hardware and it’s all working nicely now.

I torqued all the other nuts in the wing and I’m waiting on some new aileron cables from RANS so I can finish the bellcrank installation and move forward. I also need to rivet the rib reinforcement to the rib as well.

Since the bellcrank is installed now, I riveted the stringers in and started on riveting the ribs.

(6 hr)