July 31, Aug 3 2020
Most of the 31st was taken up by the passenger side kick panel that goes in front of the main spar. The initially fitting was pretty bad, so it took some trimming and sanding before it sat flat. The bracket that goes behind it was difficult to hold in position and drill at the same time, but eventually a 90 degree drill and some maneuvering got everything in place. The rivets that hold this bracket in place go through the reinforcement plate without going through the skin. Unfortunately there isn’t enough room between these two to get the rivets to sit nice and flush, and drilling them out once they’re installed in impossible without leaving metal bits between the panels. I would suggest adding a few small washers to take up some space, but even without the washers things tighten up enough to hold things firmly. It just doesn’t look great.
I finished the final fitting of the kick panel on August 3rd and repeated the process for the left side. Then I reinstalled the remainder of the interior panels just to see how everything looked together.
After the panels were in, I moved on to the replacement rudder pedals. I found this time around that I could fit a small dremel bit into the gap between the rudder and stop without removing the rudder after every fitting. A few rounds of measuring and grinding and things were where they should be. Van’s says 1 1/8″ from the rudder to the elevators is where you want to be for the recommended angle. I stopped at 1 1/4 with just a bit of pressure on the rudder. I may trim a bit more once the pedals are in and we can test the deflection with out feet instead of by pushing on the rudder skin. I then moved on to drill a hole in the elevator web for the electric trim servo wires to come through and installed a grommet.
Once that was done I did a little work on the trim tab. We over-creased the skin and it was showing signs of stress already. I drilled out the hole a little bigger and took some sand paper to the edges to get things smooth. It’s not as pretty as I would have hoped, but now it also shouldn’t be a starting point for any cracks in the skin.
-Paul
(Total Build Time: 492.6)