Texas Fastback -4

[acam37]

Things are going a lot faster now that the turtle deck is done. I finished the floorboards, put the seats back in, and fit the tail.
During this process we ran into a few boo boo's the original builder made. I had to replace the rear wing spar carry through and the F-411 upright bars due to mis-drilled holes. These repairs were not near as bad as first thought and had to be done in order to pass inspection and also be airworthy.
http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/aconner7/slideshow/

[acam37]

I had to cut the tip of the vertical stab to fit the turtle deck angle. in order to do this I had to drill out the former, then re-rivet back into place.

[Derek]

On my kit / plans only the upper longerons were notched to fit the tailplane attach struts, from your pictures both the upper and lower longeros have been notched. You may want to verify that this is correct.

[acam37]

Good eye Derek. I looked at my plans and it does indeed say to notch the bulkhead and the upright bars on the lower longeron. Now I've got to send Vans yet another email and see what I need to do to fix this problem.

[acam37]

I sent an email to Vans along with the pictures. They promptly responded and stated that there was nothing wrong with the lower longerons being notched at the F-411 frame. What a relief. I'm only praying that when I pull the tanks off the wings I don't find any surprises there.

[acam37]

The turtledeck is officially done, so now it's on to removing the engine mount for painting and changing out the mount weldments. The canopy frame has been welded up and waiting for paint and skirts.
I've been reading that a lot of folks have headroom issues, so we put the seat cushions in and sat in the plane with our headsets and helmet to check clearance. I'm 6'-1" and with maximum cushion height I have no problem.
One thing we did was to sacrifice a perfect canopy to turtle deck angle by keeping the canopy a little high in the front, but the angle is still very close.
I think it turned out great. I can't wait for the day it goes in the paint booth.
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[dealfair]

Kudos to you Arlie. Man, you are smoking along. Great!

[AX-O]

Looks nice.

[acam37]

I changed out the weldments and added gussets to the bottom brackets and when the engine mount was removed it was discovered the lower firewall was cracked. I was going to leave it alone and stop drill the cracks, but ultimately decided to go ahead and change it out. they were a lot worse than first thought. Also got the interior primed with PPG epoxy primer. one step forward two steps back.
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