S

SquishyOleo

Member
Hello Everyone!

I'm having a bit of trouble getting the W-909-L/R leading edge ribs into the W-901 leading edge skin. The ribs just don't want to fit in there properly and it takes what seems to be an excessive amount of force to just get the holes to within a quarter inch of each other. I've managed to get the two most outside ribs in but that required two guys, pushing full force, and then using an awl and clecoes to essentially lever the rib down into position. To me that just seems wrong. I've been in contact with Van's support about the problem and have seen the responses that I figured I would, "No one else has had that problem", "They're supposed to be tight", etc, etc. They have suggested that my leading edge skins may be incorrectly bent but I'm not sure how to confirm that aside from putting them side-by-side with the fuel tank skins. Has anyone else run into this problem? This even makes me concerned about the assembly of the fuel tanks and the added complication of Proseal in there.

Thanks!
 
Tight Fit

Yes, these are a real bear the first time around.

I struggled with these as well. In the end it was a bunch of brute force that got the ribs down to where I could cleco in the bottom most rivet hole. I did that across the line for each rib. Then I slowly moved my way up the line, alternating from top to bottom. It was really hard to get each rib down to the first hole. If I had to do it over again, I would have removed the blue plastic. My ribs were digging into that, and that caused some sticking. Yes, that may make some scratches that will have to be buffed out, but it might make it a bit easier.
 
LE

SquishyOleo said:
Hello Everyone!

I'm having a bit of trouble getting the W-909-L/R leading edge ribs into the W-901 leading edge skin. The ribs just don't want to fit in there properly and it takes what seems to be an excessive amount of force to just get the holes to within a quarter inch of each other. I've managed to get the two most outside ribs in but that required two guys, pushing full force, and then using an awl and clecoes to essentially lever the rib down into position. To me that just seems wrong. I've been in contact with Van's support about the problem and have seen the responses that I figured I would, "No one else has had that problem", "They're supposed to be tight", etc, etc. They have suggested that my leading edge skins may be incorrectly bent but I'm not sure how to confirm that aside from putting them side-by-side with the fuel tank skins. Has anyone else run into this problem? This even makes me concerned about the assembly of the fuel tanks and the added complication of Proseal in there.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I had the same problem with mine, except much worse with the wing tank LE skins. I tried doing it the Van's way and even with a helper could not get the ribs into the skins. Finally I just said to myself, 'this ain't workin' so try something else'. I forced the skins apart at the TE with some 1x2 'sticks'. Put the rib in after ensuring that all of the flanges were correctly aligned, deburred, removed plastic from inside of LE, placed rib inside of LE, clecoed the front bottom 2 holes first on all of the ribs starting with the middle rib. I then clecoed all of the rest of the bottom holes in all of the ribs in the LE. Starting at the middle of the LE I then clecoed the front two holes in all of the ribs. It was then easy to finish putting clecoes in all of the rest of the ribs, always starting at the middle rib, two clecoes at a time. Did the same with the tanks as a 'dry fit', dimpled tank LE/rib flanges, placed a medium bead of proseal along both the dimpled LE skin holes and the nose rib flanges and then clecoed in place. Clecoes get messy but if you get a cheap stainless steel mixing bowl and fill it about a third of the way full with laquer thinner, just drop the clecoes into the laquer thinner as you remove from tank assembly to rivet. By the time that you finish your tank work the clecoes are well soaked and using your clecoe pliers to depress the plunger you can easily clean the clecoe and it's needle with a wire brush. All of my clecoes were re-useable, without proseal on them. The problem is that with the dimples the ribs don't want to 'slide' into place. They dig into the dimples.
Hope that this helps, thanks for match drilling, clecoe LE assembly/'dry' tank assembly onto spar BEFORE riveting for alignment purposes-it then has to square, and not twisted.
Mike H 9A/8A
 
Thanks for the tips guys. It's a bit reassuring that I'm not the only one who's run into this. I have done things like remove the blue plastic from the inside of the skins and such, but getting the tip of that rib into the bend is something else. I'm going to give it another go soon so we'll see what happens!
 
Yup!

You gotta really work with them! I started by clecoing the one top and one bottom rivet hole at the very nose of the rib/skin then put the whole thing in the leading edge cradle. After that I just pushed, pulled, swore, cajoled, bribed, pleaded, and occassionally bled until I had clecoes in the three most forward holes and then every other rivet hole (top and bottom).

Once it's drilled, it's not so difficult to put back together.

Good luck!
 
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FredMagare said:
You gotta really work with them! I started by clecoing the one top and one bottom rivet hole at the very nose of the rib/skin then put the whole thing in the leading edge cradle. After that I just pushed, pulled, swore, cajoled, bribed, pleaded, and occassionally bled until I had clecos in the three most forward holes and then every other rivet hole (top and bottom).
Click to expand...

Fred had the same idea I had. It worked well to to start with the skin just sitting on top of your cradle. Cleco the forward most bottom hole, then the top forward most hole. With the skin opened up you have room enough to angle the cleco "teeth" from the hole in the skin to the hole in the rib and get it in. Next, cleco the second and third top hole clecos, then slide it down into the cradle. With down pressure on the rib, you should be able to cleco the rest fairly easy. Once match drilled and dimpled it's even easier.
 
Similar success

Definitely put the awl away. I went the that route and bugged up a couple holes before I took a break and surfed the web. When I restarted I checked the rib flutes against the skin holes to ensure they were straight, deburred the nose area really well with scotchbrite wheel in die grinder, then did similar to Fred and Nate.

Set skin open on top of cradle, inserted 1 cleco in first bottom hole, then 2 in the first two top holes (the little flange tabs flex a bit), then the second on the bottom, and shoved it all into the cradle. A little pressure on the back of each rib was all it took to get the rest on the clecos installed.

Alan
RV-9A Wings
 
don't forget the magic scotchbrite wheel

I had the same trouble - but it's really easy once you know how. Smittysrv.com has the procedure you should follow, bascially the same as described above with clecos..... but I found it also necessary to "adjust" the very front nose flanges rather aggressively with the scotchbrite grinder wheel. Make them more rounded than you think is needed, then it will work out!

Good Luck,
 
I was like you, thinking "this just can't be right". It took a heck of a lot of effort, but you can indeed muscle them in. A little bit of Boelube seemed to help a bit. Just realize that once you get them in, you are going to have to take them out and then put them back in all over again. And then you get to do it with the fuel tanks, which are even harder!

I think I started with the aft most hole in each rib, pyring in a cleco to get the holes to align, bending a few clecos in the process. I think I started with the bottom and worked my way forward, then I repeated the process on the top.

They will fit - but you will be tempted to get out the hammer and pound them in.
 
Leading Edges

This seems to have been a problem for quite a few people. An awl is the standard tool for coaxing skin holes into alignment with rib holes. Awls normally have very sharp tips. If really high forces are required to pry parts into alignment, the thin tip may distort the rib holes. Worse yet, if the awl slips, it may nick/scratch the hole. I recommend making a better tool by, at least, slightly blunting the tip of an awl, or, better yet, grinding and polishing it to create a small, rounded nib on the end. The nib will "hook" the rib and keep it from sliding off the tool.

Other than the obvious nose flange tweaking and deburring required, I don't think the ribs are often a problem. I'm pretty sure they are made off of hard tools with very repeatable results. I matched mine against a full size drawing of Van's airfoil, and their profiles were just about perfect. It may be possible, I suppose, for some set-up error to sneak into the rib hole punching process.

I suspect the biggest problem has been with the tooling or process used in putting the leading edge bend on the skins. Some skins have apparently been over bent, and some have been under bent. Mine were definitely under bent. After muscling things together, shining a light behind the rib showed a large gap at the nose. Since the rib had the correct airfoil shape, it was clear that the wing would have "something else." My own solution was to use a Russian-Hillbilly bending brake and the full weight of three people to gently massage the skins to match the ribs. After that, things went together much more easily. Because my equipment and technique were extremely crude, I can't really recommend my exact approach, but I was happy with the results. Some before, during, and after pictures are attached. Sharp eyes will note that we played around with the boards and radius-pipe to get the effect we wanted without wrecking the skins. I apologize for the big picture files, but I wanted to show some detail.

Before:
IMGP2317.JPG


Crude Brake:
IMGP2319.JPG


Crude Brake Crew:
IMGP2322.jpg


After:
IMGP2320.JPG
 
Ahh... ok - so this seems to be a common issue amongst RV'ers. The procedure you all describe makes sense and I also just found it on Smitty's website as well. Why it never dawned on me to do it that way, I'll never know, but I'm now just that little bit wiser! I'll give that a go on the weekend and see how they come out.

Many thanks to all! :D
 
Leading Edge/Fuel Tank Skins

I managed to struggle thru the leading edge/rig placements but did a whole lot of fussing/conferred with several other builders and suggested to Vans that those skins ought to be bent in a more cooperative manner. The best advice I got was from other builders and was covered above better than I could relate to you.

What I would share is that after going with the popsicle sticks recommended in the builder instructions I needed a better tool to apply the ProSeal. I remembered a small metal spatula in the middle of the night. Not finding it the next day I came across a spark plug gap tool and found the .020 had just the right amount of flex and it was rounded beautifully on the tip. IMHO a juge improvement over the popsicle stick.

Just my six bits worth.
 
Leading Edge Update

Just wanted to post an update to everyone who took the time to pass along their pearls of wisdom. I had another go at the leading edge skins on the weekend and what a difference a little knowledge makes! The left edge went together without much fuss and the right one is almost following suit. The right one is being a little more temperamental with getting the holes to line up but at least it's still going together.
 
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