Brief Description: Left wing moved to garage & installed.
The left wing was moved from the cradle on the back deck to the garage. My brother, Clark, came to help with the moving and installing. The root end of the wing was supported by a sawhorse while the tip was supported by one of the work benches which appeared to give about the right dihedral. After lubricating the carrythru spar holes and wing spar holes, Clark pushed the wing slowly while wiggling it up and down and fore and aft. I was holding the fuselage to keep it from sliding on the sawhorse. The main spar slid right in but then stopped. After searching to see what stopped it, we noticed that the rear spar was about 1/8" aft and hitting the aft leg of the fuselage fork slot. After some more wiggling fore and aft without any luck we stopped to analyze the situation, ARGH! We definitly did not want to gouge/scratch the spar or the fuselage fork since it is such a critical joint.
We decided to grease a 0.040 piece of rectangular aluminum sheet (2 1/2" long x 5/8" wide) and wedge it between the aft spar and into the fork slot. The plan was to place the wedge long side up and short side in toward the fuselage into the fork slot and then remove the wedge by pulling it up and out from between the spar and aft leg of the fork if the aft spar inserted as hoped. Clark wiggled fore and aft twice and the spar slipped right in, Yippee!. The bearing grease did its job. We removed the wedge with some channel lock pliers. I then climbed into the fuselage with my drift pins and inserted them as Clark wiggled the wing up and down. The pins went right in with some taps from a plastic mallet. Success!
We'll wait for another day when the weather is good (no wind in the early morning) and then open the garage door and install the right wing so that we can check for wing sweep and set the wing 1 degree incidence. Then I'll drill the aft spar and fork for both wings.
Wing is placed on the bench and saw horse.
Wing installed with aft spar in fuselage fork.
Closeup of aft spar in the fuselage fork. Not yet drilled.
