Monday, October 24, 2016

New toys for the wing! - Torquing Aileron bellcrank - 3 hours

Feeling a renewed urge to get building, I finally opened up some goodies that arrived on Friday.

I had received a shipment from Aircraft Spruce and Vans Airforce.


These pieces are just cool!
I also picked up a drilling jig as well and the cabling for the autopilot.

Wanting to get cracking on the wings, I dug out my proseal and mixed a little so I can install the pitot tube/wiring bushings in the wing ribs. I suppose that the bushings will do just fine without proseal, but for me. I like the idea of "Gluing and Screwing" when building so I figure that this would be extra insurance to keep things where they should be with virtually no weight penalty.

 
When I was done with the proseal. I decided to torque up the bolts on the left wing bellcrank. I'm not positive if I need to torque the AN4-32 bolt in the bellcrank. After a short thinking session, In theory If I have trimmed the bushing correct, then the bellcrank should move freely when torqued. So I torqued it to 60 in-lbs. it wasn't binding, but it was firm. So I backed the nut off. Tried again to 50 in-lbs. Very nice, not sloppy, nice movement. If I move it to the side, gravity does not let it fall to the spar, but I can use a feather to push it. I feel that this is ideal and that over time it will loosen up as the powder coating wears. So a quick adjustment to 55 in-lbs gave a little bit of margin for error. A quick recheck and I will call it good!



Update, I called Van's just to double check on the torquing of the AN4 bolt and they confirm that yes, it is a good idea to torque it, but it should not bind. So I feel good about my decisions after I have run them by the mothership.