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Rob's REBVAIR Project
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Date:  9-13-2010
Number of Hours:  15.00
Manual Reference:  
Brief Description:  Tailspring

Here's my take on the tail spring. Given Wayne's great experience with off-the-shelf trailer leaf springs, I believed a leaf spring of some sort was the way to go. However, I was never sure how to handle the curvature of the trailer leaf springs though, so the aeronca was attractive due to the shape. But they don't come flat near the bolt the way you see it now. That took a few tons of pressure at the local truck repair shop. When I asked him to heat it with a torch to bend it (as others have done) he said it would lose its 'spring' at that location. He convinced me the press was the way to go, and I'm happy with the result. I also trimmed an additional inch of the now flattened end to bring the geometry more in line with the MAM spring. Drilled a new bolt hole as well, and had to manufacture an aluminum spacer for the bolt, as I used a much longer bolt than prescribed in the manual. Why? Because I thought I might use all three leaves supplied with the aeronca spring, and I didn't want to remove a shorter bolt once the tailcone was complete...would have been a nightmare inside that confined space. In this way, the addition of the third leaf would be relatively easy.
The rest is fairly standard except for the use of 6061-T6 0.5" stock in the clamp area, instead of the myriad of spacers MAM provided. The two springs are just under 0.5" thick when combined, and I added some 0.032" stock to get the blocks really tighly sandwiched to prevent any movement. Kept the bolt-end untightened during this procedure to allow the 'clamping' procedure to dictate the final position of the spring over the bolt. Then fabricated the delrin and aluminum spacers to fit the remaining space. Very happy with the way this turned out.
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