vernhendershott
Well Known Member
Had a very frustrating day due to poor quality parts and missing parts from the Powerplant Kit, sent the following to Van's as there will be no staff there until Tuesday to deal with it.
Dear Joe,
Please deal with these issues or pass them on to the correct person and let me know who is to deal with each please.
We started on the Powerplant kit today and found that we could not make much progress due to the following:
1. Page 45-02 The Master Relay
We tried to follow the instructions to install the Master Relay and found that the hole pattern on the firewall was about 1/4 inch to small for the part supplied. That is to say that the holes in the relay were about 1/4 wider than the placement of the nutplates that are there for the Master Relay to be bolted to. The firewall holes were factory located and the holes in the relay do not have the material to grind them out to make a fit that would be acceptable. Please provide the correct part to fit the firewall so that we may make some progress.
2. Page 45-03 Inline Fuse installation
We tried to follow the directions to make up the Inline Fuse using a ES 321045 on one end and an ES 320562 on the other and found that none of these parts were supplied. It would seem that you have been making changes to what should be in bag 2813 and that it was decided to leave these out, as they are required please supply them and any other parts that are called out in the drawings and that have been deleted from the bags. In my case there were only two parts in bag 2813.
1.000 F 4 DTX-S ELBOW TUBE-PIPE 1/4
1.000 EA HOSE H177X3 3" LONG HOSE
3. Page 45-03 The Ground lead to the battery
In this step two ground wires come together at the battery box case and are held on by an AN Bolt, washer and a MS 21042-3 Nut. These nut that were provided are of such poor quality that you can not get a 1/4 inch socket on them and as you know they take a very large amount of force to turn on to the bolt, particularly when they are so bent shut that a socket will not go on them. Please supply hardware of sufficient quality that it may be used. It is just my personal opinion, but I do not think "Missile Nuts" have any place on a homebuilt aircraft, even when they are of good quality they are very hard to work with as most of us do not have "Snap On Tools" in the size range required to work with them and normal "Craftsman" tools just do not have the close tolerance to get the job done in a way consistent with good quality work. Please consider a better choice of hardware.
Van's has done a good job on the plans and it is important to not skip around from one page to another as tasks can be missed and work may need to be undone and repeated as your staff planned the work in good order. When we have these hardware issues and are told to just go and do something else it is encouraging us to make these mistakes, which is not good for the customer or the end product.
Best regards,
Vern
Vern Hendershott
RV-12 120186
Dear Joe,
Please deal with these issues or pass them on to the correct person and let me know who is to deal with each please.
We started on the Powerplant kit today and found that we could not make much progress due to the following:
1. Page 45-02 The Master Relay
We tried to follow the instructions to install the Master Relay and found that the hole pattern on the firewall was about 1/4 inch to small for the part supplied. That is to say that the holes in the relay were about 1/4 wider than the placement of the nutplates that are there for the Master Relay to be bolted to. The firewall holes were factory located and the holes in the relay do not have the material to grind them out to make a fit that would be acceptable. Please provide the correct part to fit the firewall so that we may make some progress.
2. Page 45-03 Inline Fuse installation
We tried to follow the directions to make up the Inline Fuse using a ES 321045 on one end and an ES 320562 on the other and found that none of these parts were supplied. It would seem that you have been making changes to what should be in bag 2813 and that it was decided to leave these out, as they are required please supply them and any other parts that are called out in the drawings and that have been deleted from the bags. In my case there were only two parts in bag 2813.
1.000 F 4 DTX-S ELBOW TUBE-PIPE 1/4
1.000 EA HOSE H177X3 3" LONG HOSE
3. Page 45-03 The Ground lead to the battery
In this step two ground wires come together at the battery box case and are held on by an AN Bolt, washer and a MS 21042-3 Nut. These nut that were provided are of such poor quality that you can not get a 1/4 inch socket on them and as you know they take a very large amount of force to turn on to the bolt, particularly when they are so bent shut that a socket will not go on them. Please supply hardware of sufficient quality that it may be used. It is just my personal opinion, but I do not think "Missile Nuts" have any place on a homebuilt aircraft, even when they are of good quality they are very hard to work with as most of us do not have "Snap On Tools" in the size range required to work with them and normal "Craftsman" tools just do not have the close tolerance to get the job done in a way consistent with good quality work. Please consider a better choice of hardware.
Van's has done a good job on the plans and it is important to not skip around from one page to another as tasks can be missed and work may need to be undone and repeated as your staff planned the work in good order. When we have these hardware issues and are told to just go and do something else it is encouraging us to make these mistakes, which is not good for the customer or the end product.
Best regards,
Vern
Vern Hendershott
RV-12 120186