Thursday I put in another order to Van's...the remainder of my ER fuel tank supplies (minus the low pressure electric pumps). So, I will be expecting that order to arrive some time next week so I can crank through those leading edge tanks.
The last few days have seen work on the following: machine countersinking the main spars, fixing a mistake on the fuel tanks, more ER fuel tank work, assembly of the aileron bell cranks and fabricating and building the aileron push rods. Here are some pics...
A small mistake I made on fuel tank attach brackets...the inboard bracket doesnt get nutplates...whoops. So I had to drill these out to remove them and then rivet them to the spar.
Machine countersink...self-etching rattle can primer, rivet nutplate to the backside.
Machine countersinking the main spar for the wing skins. I am 3/4 of the way done with this. It kinda wears a guy out...my arm was getting a little tired so I'll finish it up in the next session. ;) After countersinking...gotta prime those holes. I just used my self-etching rattle can for this.
You have to cut to length the aileron push rods from stock tube, this is the larger one that will go from the aileron bell crank to the control stick. Van's calls out a measurement of 65-25/32". Awfully precise for a part that is being measured with a measuring tape and marked with a sharpie. On top of the fact, the design is adjustable so its debatable if its that important. Oh well, I did my best to make it exactly as they called out. It came out pretty darn good for the tools I was working with. In this pic, you can see I cut it about an 1/8" long and then used a piece of paper as a way to get a square, precise mark for the final length. I then sanded it down on the belt sander, did some hand file work, followed by the debur tool, emery cloth and then scotchbrite to clean it all up nice. This process worked well for me.
Here is my final line marked on the tube. You can see my marks on the table for the length.
Once they are cut to length you need to prime the inside of each tube. I just taped one end of the tube and used a funnel to pour some primer into the tube. I then proceeded to roll the tube until I felt like it was coated. I used a flash light to inspect it the best I could...I think it worked well from what I could tell. After that is complete, you add the threaded end caps. I did this while the paint was still wet...they are a tight fit. Next I will drill them and use pull rivets to attach the threaded end caps...followed by priming the entire assembly.
Here is a shot of the smaller aileron push rods. These go from the bell crank to the aileron itself. These are steel tube and have threaded studs that insert in each end. These also had to be cut to length just as the longer versions. Some guys weld these inserts in place...Van's says you can weld them or rivet them. Although the weld idea is a nice clean solution, I plan to rivet them...just because I dont want to spend the time to go find a good welder and then spend the money. Rivets should suffice.
Here is the aileron bell crank assembly. There is a brass bushing that is included in this assembly that needs to be reamed to 1/4" ID for the attach bolt to fit through. I just used a pair of pliers to hold it in place and my drill press to do this. Certainly not very high tech, but it worked alright. The reamed hole doesnt need to rotate around the bolt so the quality of the hole finish is not that important. I used some lubricant (LPS-1) on the outside of the brass bushing and polished it up good with the scothbrite wheel to get a nice rotation within the bell crank.
I threw these rivets in to the wing ribs. They sit underneath the fuel tank skins so I dont think they attach to anything else? The only reason I mention this is, I could not find a callout in the prints for these rivets anywhere. I used AN426 3-4's, worked fine.
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