April 5, 2015
Happy Easter
15 hours- 613 hours total-
Since the last post I've made quite a bit of progress. It will be difficult to tell from the photographs, but progress none the less.
Over the past two weekends I've attached the vertical stabilizer, the stabilator, the AST and the pitch trim assembly. Each had their separate challenges. I'll start with the vertical. I found that it was best to follow assembly directions. Surprise! Don't tighten the mounting screws until you're got all screws started. It makes it much easier to line everything up. I had problems with one nutplate assembly. The forward lower left. I tried and tried to get the bolt started, but no. Final had to remove the assembly. Removed the offending nutplate, slightly enlarged the bolt hole and then reattached the nutplate. Easy, but time consuming. After that everything fit and I torqued the assembly.
Then it was on to the stabilator! This is really a two person job. Unfortunately I didn't have two people to help. I did have two jackstands, loned by a friend and fellow RV-12 builder. These stands, one on each side, hold the stabilator in place while mounting. Earlier in the instructions for the stabilator build you're instructed to temporarily glue wishers to the inboard and outboard attach points on each side of the stabilator. The reason you do this is to align the stabilator so that when it's mounted there is equal space on each side of the tailcone. For some reason I didn't do this- guess I thought I'd do it later. Had I followed the instructions I don't know if it would have made a difference! Warning- there is very little room to work. The mounting hinges are in close proxcimity to the aft tailcone bulkhead. I used two nails bent at 90 degrees to temporarily attach the stabilator. I inserted the nail from the opposite side of the bolt entry. I slowly backed out the nail as I inserted the bolt and associated washers. It took three or four attempts to get it right, center the stabilator and switch out washer sizes. AN960-10 and 10L. Took me two days to install. Sometimes you just have to walk away.
It was at this point that I decided to move to something a little easier. My first aircraft service bulliten. 14-12-06, F-1206F Bearing Bracket Cracks. Cracks were discovered on Van's demonstraor model after years and many hours of flying. I was at a point in the assembly that made installation of this service bulletin a no-brainer. I have pictures of the replacement assembly prior to installation and then once installed. Pretty simple compared to the vertical and stabilator install.
The best was yet to come- installation of the pitch trim assembly. Actually that part was pretty easy. The tough part was installing the ES-00047 minature connector pins into the connector body. Crimping the pins onto the 26 gage wire was okay. But trying to lock the pins in the connector body was pure madness!! They only fit one way. Van's doesn't tell you. Just says, if it won't snap in place romove and rotate 90 degrees, I finally got them installed a few broken lines later.
Pictures don't really do the install justice. I've got to do something with the wire bundle. One wire is about an inch shorter that the rest, so when you twist the wires it looks a little crappy.
Picture of the pitch tirm linkage prior to installation of the electric pitch tirm.
