invaluable. The first step is to make sure that the
fuselage is dead level, once this has been achieved then the digital level can
be used on the torque tube.Tuesday 1
Well the mystery of the spacer was solved. It was as simple as reading the manual. I was measuring the spacer distance in the wrong spot. I took out the spacer I had made from a stirrer stick and made up one that was a bit more substantial, and the correct length!!
Wednesday 2
Marty came by this evening so we set about floxing in the rear bulkhead. Using the digital level we spot glued it in with 5-minute epoxy. I had run out of the stuff that Europa supplied with the kit, but I got something similar called “System Three” from Aircraft Spruce which seems to work nicely. We then bonded it in place with a goodly amount of flox and called it quits for the night. It was one of those times that the job just went so smoothly. So much so it makes you wonder if it was in the right place or something.
Thursday 3
Friday 4
I got the kit for the modification of the end caps in the torque pitch tube from Europa today. Getting the old ones off was interesting. The Redux needed a bit of heat to encourage it to let go. I made up the new units and pop riveted them in place, along with a bit of Redux.
The next job was to clean off the paint so it could be repainted (again !!)
Saturday 5
Marty came by this morning and we decided to tackle putting in the torque
pitch tube. This was more of an
exercise in alignment that anything else.
A lot of measuring, shimming and re-measuring was done before we got the
Redux out and bonded it in place. This is where
the digital level is invaluable. The first step is to make sure that the
fuselage is dead level, once this has been achieved then the digital level can
be used on the torque tube.
The trick here is not to worry about getting a perfect fillet of glue in place the first time around. You have to go back and remove the shims latter and glue up the holes it leaves.
I stopped work early because my brother from Australia had dropped in for a visit. He peeked in for a look at my project, but until the torque tube glue had set the workshop was really off limits to general walking around.
I hired a C172 from the local airport and Jenny, my brother and myself flew up to Manitowoc for lunch. Linda and Marty flew their RV6 up and met us there, and as usual blew my doors off. There is something really nice about being able to get along at 150 knots plus !!
I did a little bit of painting; the torque tube got painted again for about the third time, along with a few odds and ends. I use a red primer for the steel parts, and overcoat them with white enamel. For the aluminum parts they get the “full monty”, Alodine, zinc chromate and a white enamel topcoat.
Monday 7
Tuesday 8
Wednesday 9
I removed all of the bits of wooden shim that got glued into the torque tube bond and roughed up all of the surfaces so that I could back fill it with some more Redux. I checked the measurements and they were still good, it would have been a real bugger to have to remove them and redo the whole thing.
Thursday 10
Friday 11
I mixed up a batch of Redux and back filled the holes left from the shims and generally tidied it all up. I got my heat lamps out and set them up to get some local heating.
Saturday 12
I got a hold of my partner in the C150 and did a few instrument approaches; it seems to be the sort of thing that just needs a ton of practice. In the afternoon I constructed the finger strainers for the fuel system, along with the water drain modification kit. I soldered the brass gauze to the copper tube rather than use Redux, but I did find that I really needed a gas powered soldering iron to get enough heat into the job.
Sunday 13
I made up a Redux bed for the CS14 brackets on the rear of the cockpit module. The Redux makes a really nice bed, which makes the brackets quite sturdy. I suspect a good mix of epoxy and flox will achieve the same effect.
I installed the torque tube and checked the alignment of the tabs. They worked out perfectly. All I will have to do is to add an extra washer on one side of the pitch rod and the alignment will be spot on. I am really glad that I did it this way rather than removing one of the tubes and moving it.
The last job for the day was to cut some cloth out for the fuel tank bonding. There is quite a bit of material that goes into this job. It takes just a little bit of head scratching to figure out the best approach.
You can see the fuel tank spacer here as well which is mentioned in next month.
Monday 14
I decided to log on to Tony’s web site and take a look how he tackled this job. I am glad I did, poor old Tony ended up doing the job twice over. He put the tank in too high and couldn’t put the spars in. I decided that the best course of action was to make up some dummy spars out of wood so I can be sure that the tank goes in the right place.
Tuesday 15
Wednesday 16
I made up a couple of dummy spars tonight for checking the fuel tank alignment. They will also come in handy for supporting the fuselage latter on in the project.
Thursday 17
Friday 18
I drilled the wooden dummy spars and put them in. The tank seems like it’s going to be in the rights place, mind you everything seems to be a bit tight in and around the fuel tank.
Saturday 19
Jenny and I did the fuel tank lay up today. The whole job was not nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I did the front section first, separating the top and bottom halves with cling wrap. The whole job only took about 2.5 hours. For the front side we wetted out the cloth on cling wrap and applied it to the back of the cockpit module first and then folded it on to the tank. We had put a strip of cling wrap against the back of the cockpit module which was half the thickness of the cloth to stop it sticking. This then became the piece that folded down onto the tank. We then repeated the exercise on the next strip, separating the piece on the tank with cling wrap until we had the part that bonded to the cockpit module positioned, then we removed the plastic. It sounds complicated, but it worked just fine.
The main tip I can give is to check all of the alignments with some homemade dummy spars before putting on any bid. I found on my tank that it had some bulges in it that stop it fitting flush up against the baggage bay. I used some lead shot bags and some heat to get it flat. I had to space the top of the tank from the top of the module by about 6 mm, but I have heard of other builders that had them even closer.
Sunday 20
I was feeling all “Europaed out” so we went flying up to the Dells. I had intended to cut across to Oshkosh to see some friends, but when I stopped for some fuel I called and they were about to go out. We decided to hop over to Reedsburg for lunch. I had noticed that it was quite windy out and when I called to file an IFR flight plan back to Waukesha I discovered that an Air Met had been issued for winds. Well at least it was a tail wind !!
Monday 21 ~ Friday 25
Generally pretty busy at work.
Saturday 26
I cut some cloth for the fuel tank spacer, and some to cover the plywood cover in the tunnel. Jenny and I tackled making up the spacers and called it a day. They call for about eight layers of cloth to go into the right angle bracket. By the time it all sets I think its going to be a pretty solid piece of construction.
Sunday 27
The spacers had set so I shaped them to size and made up some aluminum mounting brackets out of 50mm aluminum angle. I couldn't find the material supplied by Europa so I just trimmed down one side of the angle. I suspect that my homemade ones were a bit more substantial than the original design.
Monday 28
Tuesday 29
I had to leave town for a few days to go to Mexico. We have a manufacturing plant at Monterrey and most of the processes are being handled manually. This will be one of the several sites we are deploying Oracle software at.