Finished the left gear leg and fitted the F-713 longerons - 8 hours

Nice big day working in the garage on the plane! I haven't had a long build session like this in some time. I am starting some holidays so hopefully I am productive over the next week.

Now that I have confidence from the right gear leg installation, I was then able to transfer all of that over to the left side and I then made short work of cutting the left gear leg cutout. I'm really pleased with the fit. I decided that I will cut the holes for the brake lines through the bottom skin at a later time. The holes do not seem to line up perfectly with the holes in the gear leg weldments so I will take a look at that before I drill.




I started next on the F-713 longerons. I drew a line down the middle of the flanges.

UPDATE - The instructions indicate "Draw lengthwise centerlines on Auxilary Longerons F-713-R&L" (See 8-8) however I have learned the hard way that the centerline needs to be drawn according to the inside face of the longeron, not the backside of the longeron. This will become very apperant when you fit the F-902 bulkhead and the F-7101 gear attach web. The longeron is obviously 1/16" too low for correct fit. See my blog entry August 2, 2020 for detailed info.


I trimmed/angled the edges of the longerons to mat against the F-704 center section and I also did the same for the end that mats against the firewall. Why not get everything sitting nice and tight?  I then began drilling the longerons to the side skin.


Again, a very slow and tedious process as I really am concerned with the edge distances in this area. Especially where the longeron meets the lower engine mount bracket.  I used a pen to mark the holes from the side skin to the engine bracket. Then I marked out the minimum edge distances. As you can see, there is not much room for error here. It will work, but I am going to have to be very careful of the placement of these holes before I drill.