how many bolts?

I'm going to be putting my wings on my RV8A in my workshop to set the incidence angle, drill the rear spar, line up the wing tips, set the ailerons and flaps, adjust the push rod lengths, center the control stick and install the flap and wing fairings. After I complete these tasks the wings are going to paint and back in the wing rack. Do I need to install all the wing spar bolts to set the wing properly? I plan on using aircraft bolts for the final assembly only.
80WD

temporary wing bolts

This can be done quite simply. Go out to Lowes and buy six or eight similar sized bolts. If they are a bit tight, put them on the belt grinder and get them cleaned up. I used the grinder to put small points on the end of the bolts to facilitate getting them in. They should easily slip in. You'll find that three temp bolts on each side should work fine. I believe that I had a temporary bolt for each of the big bolt holes just to confirm that all was going well. Yes, I put a bit of lube on them.
Hope that helps.

Jim Diehl 7A #71976
44 hrs TT
Lock Haven, Pa

You can use temporary bolts, as mentioned, but only need two of the larger bolts per side, one on the top and one on the bottom of the spar.

We used 4 'lowes' small bolts on each wing to set the incidence. It may be different on the 8's, but on the 8a's the landing gear weldment causes significant interference in removing the 'big' bolts. Grinding a point on the bolts will really help with lining up the holes.

The recommendation of a brass tipped rivet set for driving the close tolerance bolts is right on, but dont overdue it. If you drive the bolts the whole way in, there is not enough clearance with the weldments to get a washer and nut in place, and it is not fun trying to back out the bolts.

The hardware store bolts are a piece o' cake to use. They come out quite readily.
When you taper the end on the grinder, also try to remove as many of the threads as possible. Full diameter threads could score the inside of the bolts paths.
You can also chuck the hdwe store bolts in a drill press, and use emery cloth to reduce their diameter and improve surface finish for easy entry/exit.

No Change?

If you put the wings on and set the angles, especially drilling the hole
in the rear spar then take them off for paint etc.
Is there ever a change when you put them on for good? Does everyone
check them again at final assembly? If it's not right when you do final
assembly then what do you do? There's only room for one hole in the
rear spar. This one has been bothering me even after watching the video
on setting the wing and angle.

Bayou Bert said:

If you put the wings on and set the angles, especially drilling the hole
in the rear spar then take them off for paint etc.
Is there ever a change when you put them on for good? Does everyone
check them again at final assembly? If it's not right when you do final
assembly then what do you do? There's only room for one hole in the
rear spar. This one has been bothering me even after watching the video
on setting the wing and angle.

Click to expand...

When I did the temporary wing install with the hardware store bolts I wondered the same thing. The hardware store bolts were tight enough so that there really isn't any slop in the dihedral position of the wings. When you drill the rear spar bolt hole, you are basically committed to that location for good, so make sure you have the sweep and incidence within specs. The good news is that the spec's are not too hard to hit within the acceptable margin of error called out by Van's.

bruceh said:

The good news is that the spec's are not too hard to hit within the acceptable margin of error called out by Van's.

Click to expand...

For sure. Not hard at all. I too was worried about the process before I did it. You just lay out some good perpendicular lines on the floor, check the leading edge position with a plumb bob, and then drill away.

When you have the wings on temporarily, don't forget to mark the hole locations in the center bottom fuse skin, where they overlap (underlap?) the bottom wing skin.

Make them long

You will only need two bolts per side, one top and one bottom. I used bolts that were way over length, about 7 inches long and did not drive them all the way in...leaving them stick out the back of the spare makes them much easier to remove once the drilling is done.