Horizontal Stabilizer Lower Flying Wires

Attached 3 thimbles and swaged sleeves to create the lower flying wire on the left side of the horizontal stabilizer (one thimble in middle, and one on each end of the cable) Discovered that one of the legs was about 1/4 inch too long.  We will have to remake the cable to correct this.  Hours: 1

Horizontal Stabilizer Top Flying Wires

The four top flying wires were constructed with stainless steel cabling, nicopress sleeves, and thimbles.  The swagged connections were dressed with heat-shrink tubing to protect the cable ends.  Hours: 2

Installing Horizontal Stabilizers

The two Horizontal Stabilizer parts (AF1000.0) were installed on the rear fuselage.  The mounting bushing had to be trimmed to the correct size before the parts would fit correctly.  Once the bushings were trimmed, the stabilizers were installed and the front mount points were drilled and eye-bolts were installed in holes.  The eye-bolts serve two functions, they hold the stabilizers and they provide a mounting point for the travel stabilizer bars.

Next, 12 flying wire attachment tabs (F-1110) were drilled out to 7/32" on one side and a Nicopress thimble was passed thru the hole.  The 12 tabs were mounted to the empennage as indicated in the manual.  Hours: 3

Rudder Pedal Brackets

One of the end rudder pedal brackets was not lining up with the other brackets  (part of the binding problem that is being addressed).  To fix this, the holes in the pedal bracket were closed off (using TIG welder).  These holes will be redrilled once the bracket is placed in proper alignment.  Hours: 1

Rudder work cont.

Rudder pedals still have issue with binding once they are fastened in place on the fuselage.  Tried adding a few shims to help with leveling, but this didn't fix the problem.  Combination of issues appears to be causing this... the rudder pedal assembly still has a bow, and the attach points on the fuselage are not level.  Made various shims from aluminum stock to try and level the assembly in place on the fuselage.  Hours: 2

Rudder Pedal Work

Still trying to get the rudder pedal assembly to operate freely. The pedals are secured at four locations. Getting the pedals to rotate freely when securing all four attach points is proving quite difficult. The assembly is binding up on one or more of the attach points. More "massaging" as the builders manual indicates is going to be needed. Hours: 3

Rudder Pedal work cont.

Temporarily installed rudder pedal brackets, shims, and rudder pedals, and found that they were binding.  Removed the pedals and noticed slight bow from one end to the other.  Applied heat on the center tube of the pedal assembly and then worked to persuade them into a better position.  After much work, the pedals now rotate more freely. (EB, MC).  Hours: 2.5

Rudder Pedal Work

Started fitting the rudder pedals to the fuselage attach points.  Had to trim material from each side of the welded rudder pedal dual unit (F-0800) to allow the two hinge ring end plates (F-0800.1) to fit correctly. (MC & EB).  Hours: 1

Glued Bottom Stringer onto Bushings

The bottom stringer was epoxied to the bottom bushings using Hysol 9460 epoxy.  After about 30 minutes, the joints were smoothed for better appearance. (MC & EB).  Hours: 1

Fit bottom stringer; riveted stringer bushings

Mounting posts (bushings) for bottom stringer were cut-off to final length, deburred, and riveted to fuselage.  Back end of stringer was bent using a pipe-bender.  Our bottom stringer will have a larger bow than what is needed with standard gear, and this is due to the need for additional space to install the Grove gear through the stringer once fabric is in place.  The distance from the bottom surface of the grove gear to the center of the stringer was 3 3/8". (MC & EB).  Hours: 3

Working on Bottom Stringer

Played a little more with the shape of the bottom stringer.  The forward and aft sections were flattened a little more.  The area around the main gear was left alone to allow room for mounting once fabric is applied. (EB & MC).  Hours: 0.5

Bottom Stringer

Measured, cut, deburred 10 bushings (stand-off posts) for lower stringer.  Hours 1

Main Landing Gear Bottom Stringer Clearance

Came to a final conclusion on how "big" to make the bottom stringer bow to allow Grove gear clearance and how "big" the fabric hole will need to be to allow the the Grove gear to be installed without interfering with the fabric. (EB & MC).  Hours: 0.5

Reamed Strings Stem Holes

The attach points for the bottom stringer stems had to be reamed to 5/16" to allow the aluminum tube stems to fit tightly.  Hours: 0.5

Determining of fabric opening size and location for gear

Working on determining size of bow in bottom stringer, and size of hole that will be needed in fabric to feed the Grove gear through the hole.  We tested a few different positions of the bottom stringer, used paper to simulate the fabric, and then fed the gear through rectangular holes in the paper to determine if the hole would be large enough to get the gear through.  We determined that this method of installing the gear will work, but still need to finalize the position of the bottom stringer and the location/size of the hole in the fabric.     EJB, MHC  Hours: 0.5