Well, knew it was too good to be true. Getting ready for inspection and the last serious job is replacing the wing bolt hardware pins with the CT bolts. Was going extremely well until I got to the last of the big bolts. In my exuberance,....I got carried away and drove it about 2/3 of the way in without a washer on the head side.
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For those that don't know, on the A models, the bottom bolts get washers under the head instead of the nut because of clearance issues and possibly because you have to torque the bolt head instead of the nut. Even then, getting the right torque is problematic. Also because of the landing gear construction, there is NO way to drive a bolt out from the back.
Sooo, the problem in the picture is obvious,... no washer and the bolt is in very very tight. I see only three ways to deal with it.
1) Blocks of wood with a perfect sized crowbar and a 7/16 open wrench under the head and pry it out. Probably doable but not pretty and possibly ruin something.
2) Cut a special end for a slide hammer to go over the bolt head and then slide hammer hammer hammer it out! Also possibly ruin the bolt and not get it out.
3) Since the bolt is really loaded in shear anyway and the head face does have a washer like surface, I could just drive it on in normally, put a little of the heavy anti-seize under the head so that it doesn't scratch the spar web when I torque it, put a washer under the nut for spacing (there is room to do that) and then torque it on down. This is far and away the easy, risk no damage option.
I am leaning toward option 3 since I think I run the least chance of damaging anything, and it would be basically no different than the ones on the top except for the issue of torqueing the bolt head with no washer under it.
Is there a safety issue on this that would justify the efforts and risk to remove the bolt just to get the washer under the head? All of the rest are in and torqued properly.
If anyone has done this and run it past Vans, I would really like to hear what they said.
I would really appreciate it if someone like Mel or other A&P types could jump in with some real world advice.
Thanks Bill S
7a almost there,....
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For those that don't know, on the A models, the bottom bolts get washers under the head instead of the nut because of clearance issues and possibly because you have to torque the bolt head instead of the nut. Even then, getting the right torque is problematic. Also because of the landing gear construction, there is NO way to drive a bolt out from the back.
Sooo, the problem in the picture is obvious,... no washer and the bolt is in very very tight. I see only three ways to deal with it.
1) Blocks of wood with a perfect sized crowbar and a 7/16 open wrench under the head and pry it out. Probably doable but not pretty and possibly ruin something.
2) Cut a special end for a slide hammer to go over the bolt head and then slide hammer hammer hammer it out! Also possibly ruin the bolt and not get it out.
3) Since the bolt is really loaded in shear anyway and the head face does have a washer like surface, I could just drive it on in normally, put a little of the heavy anti-seize under the head so that it doesn't scratch the spar web when I torque it, put a washer under the nut for spacing (there is room to do that) and then torque it on down. This is far and away the easy, risk no damage option.
I am leaning toward option 3 since I think I run the least chance of damaging anything, and it would be basically no different than the ones on the top except for the issue of torqueing the bolt head with no washer under it.
Is there a safety issue on this that would justify the efforts and risk to remove the bolt just to get the washer under the head? All of the rest are in and torqued properly.
If anyone has done this and run it past Vans, I would really like to hear what they said.
I would really appreciate it if someone like Mel or other A&P types could jump in with some real world advice.
Thanks Bill S
7a almost there,....
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