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Dave's RV-7A Builder's Log
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Date: 10-6-2012
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Number of Hours: 2.50
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: First attempt at wing removal
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This was one of those, "wow, did I really just do that?" days. Several weeks ago I had arranged for Ross and Dan to meet me at the hangar to remove the wings. At this stage of the project, the wings need to come off to add a few nutplates and get them ready for final installation. Also, I figured I would have easy access to the cabin for all of the things I needed to finish there. No problem--remove a couple of bolts and off they come. Not so fast.
Being the efficient guy that I am, I decided to remove two of the four bolts holding each wing on so that when my helpers arrived I was all ready to go. Way back when, during initial wing mate, I had inserted two 1/2" and two 3/16” bolts in each wing (inexpensive hardware store bolts) to facilitate the wing mate and aft spar drilling. There are special close tolerance bolts that go in for the final assembly but these were simply designed to hold the wing in place temporarily.
Well, as luck (and bad planning) would have it, when I removed the top 1/2" bolt, I had not expected the wing to drop...and it did. Not to the floor or anything drastic like that, but the tip dropped about 3" and that was just enough to put a "crimp" in the top 3/16" cheapo steel bolt. And...that crimp was just enough to keep it from pulling out. Ugh.
Of course this particular bolt was in the one place where it was completely blocked by the landing gear mount...completely. There was no way to get a drift pin on it and pound it out without removing the gear mount. Ugh. An hour and a half later the job still wasn't done and I called it a day and left to ponder how I was going to get that thing out.
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