Service Letter 00068

[Bob Y]

And my friend used a sharp screwdriver and hammer to easily pop one of his off. He used slow-curing JB Weld.

[Tony_T]

Originally Posted by seagull

De-bonding epoxy in a place like this is a non-issue, a few seconds with a hot soldering iron on the washer and it will come apart. Regular epoxy will release at about 200f and JB Weld at 400f. Soldering iron tips are around 650f so once the heat transfers from the washer through the glue line to the base metal it releases.

That's good to know. But we've been using glue, or in some cases epoxy, for years. Nothing new there. SL-00068 promises to be an upgrade to make servicing the stab less frustrating.

I did use JB to hold the washers last time but I think the shims installed per the SL is a better solution, especially used in combination with a stab service cart.

Contributing to the frustration though is the problem of handling the bulky stabilator off and then back on the airplane while fitting the mounting bolts. We have 3 RV12's here, possibly a fourth, and one building so I made up a stab service cart to make all this upcoming work much less frustrating.

I borrowed the idea from someone else and anyone is free to copy.

[seagull]

I used the same cart with blankets to do the SB on mine. I figured that since this was the first time removing the stab in 1100 hrs that if the next time was 2200 hrs it wasn't worth making a special fixture.

[Tony_T]

How goes it photos for the RV12 classic; not iS which has differing structure:
Drilling rivets out top and bottom, 12 in all.
Shims tapered, countersunk, dimpled as required, riveted and primed.
Brackets ready to bolt back onto the stab:

[Tony_T]

Removed and reinstalled the stabilator 3 times during the balance procedure and I can report that having the shim spacer kit installed made the tasks go easier without concern of displacing washers. If there is a need to remove the stab for a SB, painting or other reason one should consider doing the SL00068 shim kit.