|
|
|
|
Steves S-20 Build Site.
|
Date: 3-20-2019
|
Number of Hours: 5.00
|
Manual Reference:
|
Brief Description: Assembly of Wing Struts.
|
|
Assembling the struts was straight forward, but there are some tasks to be accomplished, and some judgment calls to be made.
The manuals call for shims as required, and 0.020" stock is provided. I found that the lower main strut fittings had a gap, but the 0.020" stock was too thick, so I used some 0.016" stock that I had in the scrap pile. Most of the other end fittings in my kit actually needed to be sanded slightly to get them into the struts.
My air compressor is at the paint booth, which is 35 miles away from the airplane, so I have doing the rivets by hand. This is a challenge when doing the 3/16" stainless rivets used on the lower main strut plates. There are 12 of them to squeeze, and that is plenty....
The only other part worth mentioning was the upper fitting in the rear strut, which has to be relieved to allow it to rotate about 40 degrees within the strut profile. I started with a small file taking very small cuts on this part, but learned to get to 40 degrees would take some effort, so I ended up getting the dremel out to make short work of this task.
I checked the fit of the lower main strut fitting in the fuselage, and found that both sides need some material removed from the corners of the curved area to clear the fuselage welds, as well as some material removed from the bottom of the curved area to allow the fitting to rotate into the correct orientation. I used my bench sander for most of this work, and then pretty'd it all up with the scotch brite wheel.
I also filed the slots in the fittings to fit the attachment plates in the wings. This was accomplished in just a few minutes with a hand held file.
Wing install is this weekend!!
|
|
Being careful to make lefts and rights.
|
|
This end fitting required some sanding to fit.
|
|
Struts all ready to go.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2001-2024 Matronics. All Rights Reserved.
|
