Mounting the Left Wing - Part 1

TLDR

• Mounted the left wing (not torqued yet)
• Bonus: mounted the right aileron (not torqued yet)

Details

Left Wing Mounting

Today is the big day. I got help from a bunch of hangar neighbors and my EAA chapter friends to mount the left wing.

The process is about the same as the right wing, but instead of 3 people around the wing I got about 10 people this time. And it really helped! Last time when we did the right wing it took us about 4 hours to get 5 bolts in, and this time it took us 4 maybe 5 to get all the bolts in.

In the morning we pushed the airplane out and got the left wing to sit on the cradle. Then we moved the airplane back in and started to align the wing with the main spar.

Jason (my EAA tech counselor) and Edward (fellow builder and hangar neighbor) watched over the alignment, Kelly (hangar neighbor) helped with the rivet gun and keeping the environment clean and cool. Everyone else helped wiggle the wing as I hammered the bullet pin and eventually the real bolts into the main spar.

As I moved through each bolt, I put the next one into dry ice to cool it down. So that’s about 5 minutes of dry ice time on each bolt.

We started the work around 10, and by 11:45am we got 7 out of the 8 bolts in although they are not fully through. I got them through far enough that the threads are not stuck in the main spar, so each bolt had 1-2 millimeters more to pull.

At this point my helpers’ jobs are done. I worked alone to drive the last bolt in. This one is at the lower left corner, close to the skin and very difficult to get the tools in for hammering or rivet gun tapping. But eventually I got enough force to drive it in about halfway, then did the rest with the rivet gun once the space was big enough.

Then I used a regular AN7 nut to pull every bolt through fully, and removed the nut.

Lastly, I put in the washer and the locknut and tightened them enough to feel the friction increase. I did not get to torque them down yet. I will do it next.

Right Aileron Mounting

I did not plan to do the right aileron, but I got a group of young visitors to the hangar to help. They are 10-to-12-year-old kids looking for aviation field experience. Edwin (fellow EAA chapter member), their advisor, told me they are experienced enough to work on some tasks. So I decided to let them help mount the right aileron.

The mounting process is relatively easy. I already had the bolts, nuts, and washers prepared for the kids. They needed to align the aileron’s 2 hinges with the aileron mounting bearing on the wing, then insert the bolt, washer and lock it down with a locknut. I did not request them to torque the nut - wanted to do it myself once I inspect their work.

It took the kids a while to orient the parts to the right direction, and get the washers in place. But in the end they did a great job installing the aileron!