Fuselage – Page 52

Forward Baggage Floor

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 8 Hours

I got another full day in the Hangar working in another modification. The space between the firewall and forward bulkhead lies the forward baggage area. The floor is removable to give you access to several items like the rudder pedals, brake masters and several other things. The issue is that all the screws that hold down the floor are tough to get at within the small baggage area. To make this access a little easier I removed the center section of the floor and to make an easily removable access panel held down with Cam-Locs. To start I spent some time laying out the exact opening. I had to make sure I gave plenty of clearance for the different angles that support the floor. I also had to make room for the Cam-Locs and their parts. Once I was sure I had everything all laid out correctly I got the dremel out and cut the opening.

I then spent an hour or so straightening all the edges with a couple of files and sand paper. Last week I had ordered some sheet stock so that I could make the panel for this mod. I laid it out and put the cut out frame of the baggage floor on it to trace the opening.

Once I got the rough shape cut out I moved towards building the ledge that the panel will sit on. I used some .040 sheet to fabricate several strips 1.25″ wide. I cut them to length and laid out a rivet line keeping all the spacing correct and watching the edge distances. With a bunch of clamps I was able to drill all the holes and clecko them.

Since the floor was modified I had to cut down the floor stiffeners.

Now that the stiffeners were in place that made it easier to place the floor panel in place and remove it so that I could get the final shape perfect. I made several light passes on the Scotch-Brite wheel and kept checking the fit. It took a little while but I got the fit just right. With the new panel in place I clamped it down so that I could work on the Cam-Loc locations. I came up with a good layout for all 10. I then drilled a 15/64″ hole at each spot and followed that up with my 1/4″ reamer to get them to the final size. I then removed the panel and placed all the Cam-Loc studs in the holes in the support ledge, normally they would go in the panel, but I used them to hold the receptacles in place.

As those were being held in position I was able to drill all the rivet holes for them. I then replaced the studs in the panel and used them to hold the panel to the substructure since the receptacles are not riveted yet and clecko’s would get in the way. Here is how it all looked when finished.

I finished up the day by dimpling all the required holes and prepping for primer. Should get a lot done this weekend.

Gear Tower Final Assembly

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 5 Hours

I had a great 4 day weekend with the kids and my girl for Labor Day, sometimes it’s nice to just relax by the pool for a few days to reload. That also gave the gear tower parts some time to have the paint cure. Today started with a few errands that I needed to take care of. When I finally got into the Hangar I grabbed all the parts and organized for their assembly. First up was to bolt the inboard steel weldements to the gear towers through the inboard facing holes. Their are 2 bolts that you don’t put in at this time as they are shared by the mid cabin braces that will come into play in a few more steps. I bolted and torqued all the bolts, making sure that I added the new rear seat rudder pedal bracket which needed longer bolts. Once they were torqued I used some torque seal to mark them for future inspections.

I then had to bolt the outboard 3 holes on the forward and aft floor angles. Pretty simple except the middle hole on both sides on both towers. The problem with these holes is that they line up with a bend in the steel weldements. They steel has a angled cut on them to accommodate the nut however all 4 spots did not leave enough room for the nut and a washer. I had to grab the dremel and grind down some of the steel to make room. This took some time in the tight space but with a little patience I was able to get all opened up for the nuts. Before I put those bolts in I painted the spots that I ground down for rust protection. In the next photo you can see the middle bolt and nut that was the issue spot.

Once all the bolts were torqued I grabbed the forward floor section and placed the gear towers on them. You then can clecko and rivet the aft angle to floor holes, the forward ones are saved for later.

I used a lot of painters tape and was very careful while riveting so that I didn’t damage the paint. All came out pretty good! With the towers riveted to the floor you can now clecko and rivet the 2 upper braces, forward and aft as well as put the bolts in. There are 8 spots where the washers for these bolts hit the curve of the bend in the gear tower. To compensate for this curve you have to round over one side of the washers. I also put a coat of primer on the washers since I removed the plating.

I then grabbed the 2 mid cabin braces to rivet/bolt them to the towers. I had one rivet on the left side get a pretty good smiley face but not bad enough to drill out as it will never be seen once the cover is in place.

The final task I did for the day was to clecko the upper and lower aft baggage panels on so I could match drill them to the newly riveted forward tower brace.

So that’s where I stopped for the night. Pretty cool to see the shapes coming together.

Rear Bulkhead Mod Done

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 4 Hours

I spent a couple hours this morning finishing up all the little tasks on the mod. I finished up the work on the notch on the top and deburred all the holes. I did decide to go with 3 CamLocs rather than the 4 I originally drilled for. I didn’t like the way the panel sat when I put pressure in the 4 spots I had, mainly the top corners. So I moved one to each corner and one dead center at the top. I had only drilled the rivet holes for the 4 so I will just dimple those and put a rivet in them, they will be covered up by the panel and will just add to the strength of the doubler. Once I drilled the new rivets for the CamLocs I used a #21 bit to drill down through the CamLoc main hole and into the doubler, upper bulkhead and the panel door. This allowed my to keep all the holes aligned. I then used my unibit to enlarge the door holes to 1/4″ and the bulkhead/doubler to 3/8″. The CamLoc stud won’t fit through the 1/4″ without compressing it. I bought a special pair of pliers just for this job. You can the rock the stud into place and release the pliers and it will stay in place. I will also add some retaining star washers that will hold the stud firmly in place so it won’t wobble around.

I then checko’ed the hinge and the platenut the will hold the hinge pin in place. I used the 3 CamLocs to hold the top of the door in place for now. I still have other work to do before I can prime and rivet these parts. All in all a fun project making a mod that will be really helpful down the road.

With all the paint on the gear towers curing and this mod done I decided to stop the work for the upcoming Labor Day weekend. When I get home from the ling weekend I will finish up the tower riveting so I can start on the forward baggage area. Have a great holiday weekend!

Rear Bulkhead Modification

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

I got most of the painting done on the gear towers the other night and will finish that up tomorrow. If you don’t get your second or third coat of Rustoleum on with an hour of the previous coat you have to wait 48 hours before re-coating. This is to prevent wrinkling of the next coat as there is a chemical process going on between the outer coat, which drys faster than the under coat. If you try to re-coat after the first hour you essentially have a wet coat on top of a dry coat on top of another wet coat. This lends itself to bad wrinkling. So with all that said I let the gear towers dry for over 48 hours and can re-coat them tomorrow. While I was waiting I decided to start the process of modifying the rear bulkhead for an access panel to make working on the avionics much easier.

This panel divides the forward baggage compartment from the avionics bay. There is an upper and lower portion. To work on the avionics under a normal build you would have to remove the instrument panel or crawl under the panel to gain access. A modification that makes that task easier is to cut out a hole in the upper portion to make access to the avionics easier through the baggage area. I took many notes and pictures from my buddy Glens -8 as well as several at OshKosh this year. I laid out all the parts and did some marking of the cuts.

After going over each part in my head I finally started the cutting.

I cleaned up all the edges with my Dremal, sandpaper and my files. I had ordered some sheet stock from Aircraft Spruce, one of which was a 2’x2′ sheet of .040 thick Alclad. I used this to make a doubler for the area I just cut out to stiffen things up a little.

Once that piece was fitted and cleaned up I measured out the rivet holes to hold it in place as well as the rivet holes that will hold the CamLoc 1/4 turn receptacles on. I’m using 4 CamLocs for this door and they will make it real easy to open it when needed.

The next few steps were to cut some piano hinge the right length and match drill it to the lower portion of the hole. I then grabbed some .025 sheet and fabricated the door. It was mostly a little measure then cut then measure then cut.

Before I could close the door I need to make a notch in the top of the door to make room for the baggage door hinge support bar the gets riveted to the upper portion.

It was getting late so I decided that was a good place to stop. I will get back at it tomorrow and try and finish up this mod. Lots of fun making this airplane all mine but it’s a lot of extra work! 🙂

Gear Tower Riveting

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Michael — No Comments ↓

Time: 6 Hours

I got back to working in the riveting if the gear towers this morning. The rivets on the face of the towers I was able to get with the pneumatic squeezer which last night I thought I would only be able to get with the gun and bar. I used several different yikes in the squeezer to get all of them through the lightening holes. Once I had those done I did the next few steps in the plans which ended up with the gear towers clecko’d to the forward floor section.

Having these towers in position allows them to be lined up and secure so you can rivet the exterior side gear weldements. These have a bunch if rivets, both forward and aft. I grabbed the 4X rivet gun and the AN470 head and my new tungsten bucking bar. I wrapped the bar and the spring on the gun to reduce the scratching of the primer. I started with the forward side rivets first, mainly so that I could get my riveting “legs” back and if I made a smiley on a rivet head it would not ever be seen! I love the new tungsten bar! I’m in the same group of people who say “I wish I had bought this a long time ago”!! What a pleasure to use, it’s just very dense and hardly moves as I buck and was small enough for getting into tight spaces. I got all the rivets done on the right side forward edge with only one smiley but it will never be seen. I moved on to the aft side and had great results with no smileys. I finished up the left side in about an hour and half.

I am skipping a couple of steps in the build process since I’m going to paint these as a structure before bolting the weldements in and riveting to the forward floor. I then matched drilled the two upper supports, forward and aft. Van’s plans make a big note to not change or omit these parts as they are structural. I have heard of guys altering these so that certain avionics could fit behind the instrument panel. I also checko’ed the lower side braces.

I then took off the braces and inboard weldements off and cleaned up the new rivets for priming.

I had to stop there as I have a 4 day trip to fly. I will paint these parts when I return and let them cure for a while before riveting them all together. Next up the forward baggage area.

Total Time – 1938 Hours

Empennage Total – 218 Hours
Horizontal Stabilizer – 83 Hours
Elevators – 53 Hours
Vertical Stabilizer – 22 Hours
Rudder – 37 Hours
Fiberglass – 23 Hours

Wings Total – 536 Hours
Wing Structure – 216 Hours
Fuel Tanks – 135 Hours
Ailerons – 53 Hours
Flaps – 42 Hours
Wiring – 11 Hours
Fiberglass – 56 Hours
General – 23 Hours

Fuselage Total – 1184 Hours
Canopy – 124 Hours
Engine: 115 Hours
Cowl – 64 Hours
Firewall – 62 Hours
Firewall Forward – 16 Hours
Forward Section – 285 Hours
Center Section – 57 Hours
Seat Substructure – 27 Hours
Mid Fuselage – 131 Hours
Aft Fuselage – 190 Hours
Wiring – 113 Hours