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It could be worse
You could be putting the wing bolts in and RV-6A.
Bob Axsom |
Reaming out the holes?
I ran into a guy (can't remember his name) at Sun n Fun last April who I struck up a conversation with about wing mounting, etc. When I complained to him about how tight the fit on the bolts were he gave me a "tip", which I haven't tried yet and want to know your take on it. Although I can't remember which model he was building he said he used a 7/16" drill bit to ever so slightly ream the bigger holes to ease the installation and de-installation of the large spar bolts. He indicated a nice tight fit yet but didn't have to hammer them in and out. He's flying and says things are fine. Thoughts?
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Sounds like a bad idea. The bolts are tight for a reason.
Jim Sharkey |
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Well My RV-6A book says it's OK to ream
"The Book" says it is OK to ream holes to proper size if all of the other techniques fail to get a bolt in. I used a good plastic mallet, lubricant, tools made by grinding points and flats on sacrificial bolts and I got them in. In some cases I spent hours on a single bolt. It was a tremendously difficult task although it was completely offset by the elation experienced when the first indication of movement into the hole was sensed. As I recall there are over 60 of these in the RV-6A tying wing spar, fuselage, steel splice plates and main landing gear mounts together. My final assembly hangar mate Ken Knowles used the proper sized reamer and did not get to share the exhilaration of accomplishment - it was just another assembly job requiring the right tools to this tremendously experienced builder.
Bob Axsom |
Did this yesterday
RV-9 wings went on last night - final assembly (we hope!) A little grease and a bigger hammer!
MUUUUUUCH easier than Taylorcraft wings / struts. We walked away thinking - is that it? |
Wing bolts in
I pray that I never have to remove the bottom 2 large bolts. The 1/4 inchers were not bad, neither were the top, but the bottom 2 big ones on each side.....I have words for those that are unprintable.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure how to get them out if I had to remove. I ended up using a rivet gun to drive them in. As far as lubing up. Spray some WD40 in the hole and grease the bolts up. I learned a bit too late and only managed this on the smaller bottom bolts and they turned so easy compared to the others. So here's the question. How does one get a bolt like that out? One thought I had was to weld something on top and use a hydraulic jack or an impact hammer. |
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Yes, the -6's had an order option for the fancy spar. You could either fabricate / assemble the spar yourself, or get the anodized / assembled version for more $$. I don't remember if the assembled one w/o the anodizing was an option.
I also had some initial difficulty installing the bolts in the -6A. But I quickly learned that I needed to install the large close tolerance bolts FIRST, followed by the smaller close tolerance bolts, and finally the AN series of bolts. While doing this, I used large C-clamps ( yes, use pads to prevent marring the Al) to compress the sandwich of aluminum and steel plates and multiple spar strips together. This compression prevented the individual pieces from expanding apart, and this allowed the bolts to be taped in...with a hammer, yes...but they were really just gentile taps. All in all, it took 10 guys two hours to lift the a/c, insert the wings, get all the splice plates, gear mounts, and all the bolts installed on the a/c. I spent the next 8 hours going back over the install, checking bolt lengths, changing to longer bolts where required, nut torque, and general QA work. |
I don't know about reaming the holes.
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