So, a lot has been happening in the world in the last week or so.

The Novel Corona virus, better known now as COVID-19 has seen exponential spread across international borders from it's origins in China.  Unless you have been living under a rock or are reading this blog in some distant, future archive (thanks by the way!), news and anxiousness is rampant about what is now officially declared a pandemic.  People are scared, some more than they realistically need to be and world financial markets are feeling the squeeze. 

​Mandatory closures of schools, businesses and government facilities are becoming commonplace as we work to "social distance" ourselves from others.  Large groups, social gatherings, events and meetings are highly discouraged if not outright banned  Efforts are underway by people everywhere to prevent the spread of the virus and protect those who may not have the benefit of good health and the ability to fight off this particularly nasty bug - it can and has been shown to be fatal.  Unfortunately there are those ignoring common sense which is leading to more anxiousness and unease.  This has even lead to a very strange phenomenon of the panic buying bulk toilet paper! 

I've said before how much my shop time is my happy time.  It's my place to decompress from my emergency services job.  While a good portion of society has been told to stay home from work, my colleagues and I continue to work shifts in a busy 9-1-1 communications centre and although the calls for service have yet to peak as I think they will,  we are an essential service and will continue to come to work and answer the calls.  It's scary but I think we'll come out the other side of this craziness better off as a society from the lessons learned.

So, what better way to practice "social distancing" and "flatten the infection rate curve" of COVID-19 ng than to get to the shop and work on my build!  Here's what's happened since my last blog post.

A couple of weeks ago, I traveled south to visit Dad and made a side trip to Princess Auto and Aircraft Spruce for tools and hardware.  I needed an inch/pound calibrated torque wrench and was happy to find a good quality one on sale - score!

I stopped at Aircraft Spruce and picked up my online order of the remaining aircraft hardware I need for the build, other than some back-ordered nut plates and stainless machine screws.  Obviously this isn't everything I'll need (the interior will require some fabric fasteners etc), but what you see in the picture below is the lion's share of bolts, nuts, washers and cotter pins called for in the plans.

With the elevator all closed up I started fitting the trim control rod and servo arm

Here is a good look at the servo arm and trim control rod.  I'm not happy with how they fit together as there is too much slop or play between the pin and the arm, so I'll likely put some JBWeld metal epoxy in the arm hole and drill it out to match size the rod arm pin. 

The rod as it comes from the hobby store is plenty stiff enough to work in this arrangement, but comes much too long.  I attached the trailing rod end to the trim tab actuator bracket.  With the elevator trim in the neutral position, I held the road alongside the rod end, trimmed the rod to length on the bandsaw and ground it smooth on the bench grinder.

I specifically left the rod long enough so that I can trim is shorter if needed.  The plans call for the elevator to deflect 20 degrees up and 40 degrees down from neutral.  Before I can set the system up, I'll have to thread the this end of the rod for the safety nut.  I may change the "neutral" position of the servo arm to favour the 40 degree pull - it will take some playing around to get it just right.  The servo programming is the easy part!!

Some final clean up of the stabilizer was completed and I temporarily closed it up with rivets, just like the elevator.  The insides will have to be inspected by Tansport Canada before all the final rivets are done.  Stabilizer fences are just temporarily attached for storage purposes and may need to come off to open it back up for inspection, but I may get lucky and they can stay on for final riveting.

The following pictures show the completed tail assembly with outer and centre hinge pins installed.  It lined up perfectly and shows no signs of binding - very pleased!  (it's sitting on the bench upside down compared to how it will be mounted on the plane - it just sits better that way).

So!  The tail is now complete.  I currently have roughly 150 hours of work into it.  Once wrapped in heavy plastic it will join the rudder up in the storage barn.  There's about another full day's work once it's cleared for final close up to complete, with a lot of that having to wait for fitting to the fuselage.

​I feel so productive and safe from the world's dangers in the shop right now.  With all the temporary closures, I couldn't think of a better place to stay safe from COVID-19 -  working on the some temporary closures or my own :)

Thanks for following along.  Next up flaps and slats!

A real good, full and productive day today at the shop.

I'm pulling together the last of the details about the elevator.  Started off today by laying out the access hole for the trim servo:

The hole turned out well and deburred nicely.  I think I may have to enlarge the hole some, but I've already cut my cover plate as per the plans:

The easiset way to make sure the cover plate is centred over the access hole is to extend the layout lines far enough, that layout lines copies to the cover can be lined up:

The plans call for A4 pulled rivets to secure the cover - I think I'll add riv-nuts like I did on the fuel tank cover of the 701 wing repair.  I want access to the servo during routine maintenance inspections and drilling out rivets each time doesn't make sense to me.

Next up was figuring out how the elevator connects to the stabilizer.  According to the plans, the centre elevator hinge requires a bushing between the attach bolt and elevator horn and the specs are described in the drawings below.

 
I cut a small length of bushing tube material and confirmed the diameter is 1/4 inch:

Initial width was brought close to 2.5mm using the bench grinder.  Pro tip - hold on tight with a pair of pliers, the busing tends to go flying across the shop if you don't (this was my 3rd attempt!)

Careful hand sanding brings it down to the correct width of 2.5mm

This is where things got a bit confusing.  The plans clearly show the bushing extending on either side of the elevator horn - 2.5mm is barely wide enough to protrude out each side of the horn?  Should the bushing rotate in the elevator horn? Right now, my bushing is almost a press fit in the horn with very little to no movement. The bolt rotates freely in the bushing.  I'm guessing the bolt rotating in the bushing is better than the bushing rotating in the horn - easier to replace a worn bolt/bushing than a horn?

​Also, I've been told that any bolt involved in a moving assembly should be drilled and cotter pinned or safety wired. The plans call for a nylon lock-nut here, but I'm kind of leaning towards a drilled AN3-5 and appropriate castle-nut and pin.

An email to Roger at Zenith cleared things up nicely.  The bolt should clamp the bushing and the horn rotates around the bushing, not the busing around the bolt.  Roger was kind enough to send a reference page that explains all this:

So, as counterintuative as this is, now I know what the correct assembly should look like (just like the plans).  One difference is that the reference page explains the dimensions better.  If you look closely the bushing should protrude a minimum of 0.5mm on each side of the horn when the nut is tightened.

To make the bushing rotate freely, I ran the bushing tube on the belt of the bench sander to very slightly reduce the diameter, only enough so that it would rotate freely in the elevator horn, and then cut it to the correct width:

I test fit the hinge and everything looks good.  I used a non-locking nut temporarily to hold everything together, the proper nylon lock nut will be added at final assembly.  Just enough clearance and no slop in the hinge - very good.

Next up, I had to devise a way to accurately place the hole for the outboard hinge pin in the wing fences.  To do this I made a template for each side using card-stock paper.  To make a clean hole that doesn't tear open and also matches the 3/16 diameter of the outboard hinge pin, I placed the card-stock between to thin scraps of wood, clamped it together and drilled through:

Placing the template over the pin, I now have a convenient place to mark a reference line (the wing fence rear rivet holes) - sorry, took a pic from each side as I was doing this:

Black reference marks on the card-stock where the rivet holes are:

Connect the reference marks and voila - when laid across the wing fence, reference marks line up with rivet holes and the drilled hole in the card-stock shows where the hinge pin hole will be.  Easy!  From here, I drilled out the hole to 1/4 inch, in anticipation of adding a bushing:

The plans don't call for a bushing on the pin, but there is room for one and I'd prefer that for smooth rotation and protecting the aluminum of the wing fence.

To make the require bushing I added the inside washer then measured out the pin to where the other washer will be inboard of the cotter pin hole - turns out to be about 6mm between the washers when assembled:

It's hard to position this completely as the clecos protrude out from the hinge pin plate, but this is close enough for now.  Unlike the centre hinge, this bushing is free to rotate in the wing fence and around the outboard hinge pin.  It will be well lubricated and I may add some more washers on final assembly to tighten up any slack:

With the Arduino trim control pretty close to final set up, I wanted to double check the power source as it will be in the plane.

The aircraft will have 12v DC nominal power from the Corvair engine, so I need a way to regulate this down to 5V for the Arduino board and the servo.  Welcome to the "Buck Converter" - it takes up to 48V DC input and brings it down to a flat regulated output of the users choice.

The brass set screw on the potentiometer allows the user to set the output.  The beauty is the output remains a constant flat voltage, regardless of changes in the input (say when the alternator is charging the battery circuit).  Once set, I'll add a drop of LocTite to prevent it from changing due to vibration.

For testing purposes, I borrowed a 12V utility battery from Ron and hooked it up to the converter, and the converter to the Arduino test board:

The Arduino trim system runs exactly as it would powered by the USB cable - perfect!

I might use the converter below for powering the trim system.  The trim system doesn't draw a tone of current (very little actually).  This converter does the exact same thing as the one above, just not as bulky as the other one - reducing the footprint even further.  The converter above might be better suited for powering LED landing/nav/strobe lights.  Arduino will be used for lighting control too.

Next up, I started working on the mounting bracket for the trim servo.  I grabbed a previous incorrectly bent bracket to re-purpose as my mount:

Once cut down to size, I laid out the lines for the servo mounting hole:

A cutoff wheel in the Dremel and the air-saw made cutting the mount hole easy:

With the bracket built, I can work on getting it mounted inside the elevator.  I haven't got the push-rod or connectors yet, so I'll wait until I have those to mount the servo.  I'm not sure this will be enough support for the servo either.  The plans call for the Ray Allen trim servo to be riveted directly to the elevator skin - I'm thinking I might do a rework on my mount to attach it to the elevator spar.

What I could do in the meantime is fabricate and mount the trim control horn.  I cut the piece a long time ago and bending such a small part was challenging but I got it done fairly quickly: 

The control horn will be riveted to the trim corner.  The horn end will be drilled once I know the size/type of push rod connector I'm using.

 
It took a long time to get to this stage and I'm almost ready to.... pull it all apart for deburring, priming and reassembly!  It's nice to be able to move the elevator up and down now that it's attached to the stab - no binding, no grabbing.  Nice and smooth!  Really like how the fences turned out too!

With the horizontal tail group getting close to completion, it will soon head to storage.  Next up will be the slats and flaps - both parts of the control surface systems on the wings.
 
I've been spending a lot of time considering creating a 3D digital model of the slat and flapperon tips.  Normally these are blown plastic inserts or made from fiberglass and way to expensive to buy from Zenith.  My theory is that I should be able to print them on a 3D printer - possibly even out of carbon fiber!!

To create a 3D model easily, it should be possible to scan an original (which are the same as the 701, which Ron has several in stock).  Wouldn't that be cool!

There are many commercial grade (read expensive) 3D scanning tools available to buy.  But what if I could hack a 3D camera sensor that used to belong to a Microsoft XBox gaming console?  Yup, we can do that thanks to YouTube tutorials.

I picked up an almost brand new XBox 360 Kinect sensor bar for $15 dollars in Facebook Marketplace!  Next up, hacking it to interface with my Windows laptop, scan example items, and print them!  <Insert evil laugh here>

Thanks for following along, more to come!

July was a washout with regards to getting anything done in the shop, so not much available content for the blog....

A home project to replace the shingled roof on our house with metal took up 2 weeks of my July holidays and work travels took up a good portion of the rest of the month.  Day trips with family need to happen too. This Monday to Friday temporary assignment I'm currently doing at work is good that the work is both challenging and really interesting, but it only leaves weekends to enjoy the summer.  As of last week, I've been advised that I'll be returning to shift work at the end of September.  I don't want to go back to the communications centre, but on the bright side, my schedule during the week gets freed up substantially (4 days off every week), allowing me more shop time.

Speaking of work travels, I had a chance to check out the Chapleau Ontario airport.  Although there wasn't much to see (MNR fire base was quiet), I did notice this cool sign posted by the local flying club:

July and the beginning of August hasn't been a total loss I suppose.  I did manage to get some work done on the elevator and horizontal stab.

When I fastened the skin to the stab skeleton, I marked out where I needed to trim the trailing edge.  The extra was on purpose - it allowed for proper length and square fit.  Now that fitting is complete and correct, I can trim it back:

With the trimming done, the rear slot is cut.  This is where the elevator cables pass through the stab:

I notched back the spar doubler a small bit, leaving clearance for the rivet.  Everything was deburred, cleaned up and primed after this photo was taken.  Fortunately only had two places where this was an issue.

With the stab skeleton ready, I deburred the stab skin holes on inside and outside - there are a ton!

​Cortec primer on the rivet lines was next.  I really like how it applies - next to no smell, easy clean up and cures almost clear:

With the primer curing, I turned my attention to the elevator skeleton.  Some final measurements to ensure it's built square and it is ready to taken apart again for final debur and prime.

The elevator skins are made of 016 aluminum sheet, folded at the trailing edge and fastened to the top and bottom of the spar.  It consists of two sheets of equal length meeting a the centre:

To allow the rudder to move left and right, the skins are cut out at the centre box where the rudder hinges are.  It's difficult to perceive in this picture, but once folded the cut out makes sense.

It's important to radius the corners of the cutout, so I started with a centre punch then a pilot hole and followed that up with a 3/8 drill hole.

Cut outs complete for the left elevator skin.  Easier to see how this will look when folded.  Round file and debur tool to clean things up.  This is a exposed edge, so I final sanded it with 360 grit:

Careful use of the bending brake got the fold most of the way, then I used a small diameter aluminum rod to finish the fold to the 5 degree bend called for in the plans:

I used the same piece of pipe to curve the elevator nose skins that I had used for the horizontal stab - much easier this time.

​ Skins complete:

By this point the primer has cured on the elevator skeleton.  Re-assemble and check for square - all good to final rivet.  I'll wait to final rivet the tip ribs once the skins are on and I can align the elevator and stab hinges:

With the prime cured on the stab skin, it is reinstalled for final riveting.  I've decided to river the curved side (lower) and leave the flat side open for inspection.  It's kind of weird order - first place the skin over the spar pick ups and cleco everything down tight:

Flip everything over and cleco down the flat (upper) side:

  
Flip it back over and complete the riveting on the curved (lower side).  Really happy how everything is coming together and how straight everything looks :)

The stab is essentially complete at this point.  Remaining items to be done are final rivet the hinge assembly (waiting elevator match up), cable pass-through slot in leading edge and fairleads (rub strips).  I've also decided to add wing fences to the stab tips which have valuable aerodynamic benefits and really cleans everything up.  More on the fences later.

Next up, get the elevator skins fitted up, then cut the trailing edge for the trim tab and install the servo.

Thanks for following along, more to come soon!

You know that satisfaction of reaching an important milestone when working on a large project?  The joy that is only tempered by the fact you know you still have a long way to go?  That's what today felt like..... incredible :)

After deburing, cleaning and priming all the parts for the horizontal stab, everything was reassembled and checked for square - all good and ready for rivets!

My daughter came to the shop to capture the first rivet being pulled on my 750!  I don't think I can wipe the grin off my face.  All the work I've been doing to form parts from paper to CAD to cardboard to aluminum to bending - it all comes together here.

There it is - rivet # 1 of MANY more to come.  Before I close up the stab, I'm thinking of somehow identifying this rivet - a small inscription or label or something.  All small steps may seem to make the journey a long one, but progress is defined as forward motion towards a goal.  Happy builder am I!

With the first one down, the rest are quick to follow....

​The rear bracket riveted in nicely.  I'm going to wait to final rivet the attach bracket and gusset until I have the elevator complete and can match them up to ensure the pivot holes lined up for drilling.  Same with the front attach brackets, but that's more for aligning the skins.

Very happy how this is all coming together.  Next up, I'm going to start building the elevator skeleton using the exact same processes.  Drill, fit, debur, repeat.  When both are complete, I'll start working on adding the outer skins.  I'm also starting to think of a system for activating the elevator trim system that should be an improvement on the plans.

Thanks for reading.​

With the 701 wing gone from the shop and into storage, the bench is now clear for my 750 tail group and I can get to building my airplane using the skills and knowledge I've learned.  This blog post will try and capture several days of shop work over the past week - it's been busy and to the uninitiated observer looks like it's moving really fast, but there's a bunch of work that goes into this that pictures will never capture.

The factory tail spars come predrilled, with all the rivet spacing laid out - this saves a bunch of time on layout, but you still need to consider order of operations and keeping everything square.  Slight imperfections in scratch built parts means measuring everything closely.

​And here it is.... my 750's first drilled hole (back drill from rear spar hole to doubler) and cleco.  This is the basic procedure and first step of everything to be assembled to come.

Each doubler is done the same way, A3 hole in the spar as guide, A3 drill through doubler and clecoed.  I pleased my doublers fit as nice as they do.

With everything together, drill again, this time upsizing to A4 and again to A5 where needed and cleco.  It's quite repetitive but this ensures nice clean and centred holes.  The other thing we did was line both edges of the table with angle iron clamped to the edge.  2x2 HSS tubes laid perpendicular across the table provide a level reference point (flat table) to work with.

With the spars upright and referenced flat, I started to trial fit the rear and nose ribs.  These to are back-drilled from the spar to the rib flange, then up drilled to A4 and clecoed.  A quick measurement confirms my scratch built ribs are correctly sized and by default the spars are spaced correctly.  Excellent!

Spars and inside ribs are drilled and clecoed in place, so next are the tip ribs.  The key here is make sure they are square to the spars and the spars are square to the rest of the assembly.  The front end of the tip rib is connected to the front spar (left side in picture) by a fabricated 025 "L" bracket.  It takes a bit of ingenuity to make it all square and drill it, but not overly difficult - and certainly a TON easier that repairing the completely un-square 701!

To help square everything up before final drilling of the tip ribs, we added some uprights to the bench (there were eventually 4 of these, one at each spar end front and back).

The use of standard "L" around various parts of the airframe allows for small adjustments to square everything up as well.  Kinda explains why I need so many of these (see this post). 

Here is where the tiip rib attaches to the stabilizer spar.  Drilling this takes some thinking about which order to do it first, but the uprights hold everything in place while the drilling is completed.  Another check of measurements first, then final drilling to A4 size clecos.

​With everything squared up, the horizontal stabilizer rear bracket assembly is prepped for installation.  This 063 thick aluminum plate is fun to bend, but again if you think it through it isn't that difficult.  The tabs are bent inwards to 98 dregrees from flat.  This is an important measurement as these tabs are where the horizontal tail attach to the fuselage.  I used a protractor and drew out an example angle on  paper to confirm both tabs were correct before test fitting it on the rear spar.

Clamp the bracket in place and back drill from the pre-drilled spar holes.... all good.... right.... wait a minute... damn...did I just put this in upside down?!?!

This is where paying close attention to the plans was important.  A traditional horizontal tail looks like a small wing - flat on bottom and curved on top.  The Zenith STOL aircraft have inverted tail airfoils, where the flat side faces up.  There are a number of reasons for this that I won't get into here, but what makes this confusing is that it goes against common thinking.  Multiply that by the fact the plans for the ribs and forms are drawn with the ribs flat side down, it'e easy to get confused which way is up!  I'm also building the horizontal stab flat side down to take advantage of the flat table to get everything square.

So, what saved my bacon?  The predrilled factory holes!  The fact that they are symmetrical and the bracket is centred on the spar horizontally means I just had to invert it before up drilling to A4 and eventually A5 holes.  What could have been a nightmare  was avoided, but I'll be much more careful next time!

With the bracket turned up to the correct orientation and DOUBLE CHECKED AGAIN before drilling, I worked on right sizing the holes and clecoing things in place.  Another check and everything is now where it needs to be.

Next to go on is the centre elevator hing bracket, one of three attach points between the stabilizer and the elevator.  The attach point is at the tip of the triangle and will be drilled later when we match up the elevator.

Supporting the hinge bracket is a support gusset, which was chaleging to bend correctly - again the plans give a somewhat confusing view, but a little figuring, fitting, and adjustments finally got things where they needed to be.  It's getting crowded in this area with all the clecos!

Like the ribs, clecos can be moved inside the spar or to the other side of whatever it is attached to - clecos don't seem to care and that's a good thing :)

Making notes on the parts as you go through assembly helps to remind you in the future.  Here you can see I wrote a note that an "AN-bolt", not a rivet goes in this spot - a reminder that the hole is drilled to a specific size that is slightly larger than an A5 rivet.  Before anyone comments that my grammar sucks, the term "AN" stands for a particular type of fitting (in this case a bolt) used to connect flexible hoses and rigid metal structures. It is a US military-derived specification that dates back to World War II and stems from a joint standard agreed upon by the Army and Navy, hence AN.

The final parts to be added to the horizontal stabilizer being measure/confirmed and laid out for bending - accuracy here is critical to make sure all three attach points for the elevator and the two from attachment for the stabilizer to fuselage are correct.  This will make rigging the plane easier at final assembly and a straight plane ALWAYS flies better!

I flipped the stabilizer over, making it easier to attach these brackets.  Alignment bother vertically with the proper amount protruding above the spar and horizontally in relation to the centreline of the spar is critical for tail alignment.  Looking at this picture is decieving, the brackets are perfectlyperpendicular to the spar - I know because I measured it 5 times and confirmed orientation 5 times.... no second chances here.

Next I measured up the stab/elevator hinge attachment brackets for rivet hole spacing and drilled them out.  I thought I might drill them as a stack, but I was concerned about alignment so I did the individually.  The plans are very clear here on where they attach to the rear spar and they installed accurately without issue.  So nice working with newly made, undrilled parts!

So,with everything drilled correctly, together with clecos and measured as correct, it all comes apart for final deburring, cleaning and corrosion protection.  Now was a good time to lable anything that might get confused when it goes back together for riveting.

Well, that's a lot of work done, approximately 14 hours in total.  I'm updating my build time tracker on the right of the page as I go.

Next up, prime everything for corrosion protection.  In hindsight, I think I'll wait to prime/corrosion protect parts until all the drilling/deburring is done - the drill and debur swarf tends to get stuck to anywhere the primer is already applied (it's somewhat sticky even after curing) which makes cleaning more time consuming when it doesn't have to be.  After that reassembly of the entire horizontal stabilizer for final riveting - my first rivets on the 750 will be so satisfying :)

Thanks for reading, more to come!

It's finally "done", the 701 wing repair/extension was completed a couple of nghts ago, but I'm just getting to the blog now.  Here's a quick update of what happened Thursday night to finish it off.

Off the table and to be prepped for storage.  Ron and I will add some plastic sheeting wrap over the ends to keep any birds out while it's stored in the barn.

I'm so glad to be done this repair/extension, but I can't deny how much I've learned.  Now the table is clear and I can focus can be on building my 750!

​Stay tuned more to come!

Can't believe it's been over a month since I posted to the blog.  The second half of October and first couple of weeks of November have escaped us.   Unfortunately, I felt like I had't gotten anything done in that time, but going through my photos, I see there is more done than I thought.

I had to go away for a week due to work, but I decided to make good use of my evenings in the hotel.  I took my wing rib blanks and final sanded them as I watched TV.  Got some laughs and strange looks from my co-workers when I told them I was building an airplane in my hotel room!

When I cut out the rib blanks the bandsaw kinda chewed up the inside corners of the ribs:

So when I got home and back to the shop I came up with a jig for cleaning these up.  I drilled a slightly larger hole in a scrap piece of wood and set the sanding drum up on the drill press to fit inside.  This gave me a working surface almost like an inverted router:

The sanding drum cleaned up the corners really nice and I finished them off by hand sanding.

On preparation for finish bending of the tail group pieces, I had to drill the tooling holes in the forms.  Best clamp them together evenly and drill each on the press:

When I tool out the tail group blanks, I noticed that I still needed to add the second tooling holes to many of them:

To save time and ensure accuracy, I decide to drill the stack of blanks together, using the available tooling hole as a reference point.  A bolt and wing nut held the stack together and a form block and clamp were used to place the tooling hole accurately:

With the tooling holes established, the second bolt is added as well as the back half of the forming block.  Here is an elevator rear rib bolted up and ready for bending:

The whole sandwich is mounted in the vice:

A soft faced (plastic) dead-blow hammer is used to round the aluminum over the edge of the forming block until flat:

Remove the form block and voila!  My first formed part for my airplane! YAY!

Four of these ribs are required, so repeat the process 3 more times.  Two left and two right complete:

I'm real happy how these turned out.  They are pretty simple compared to some of the other parts in the tail group, but they are nice and straight, so my efforts to make the form blocks accurate paid off.

The next thing I wanted to do was get more of the thicker parts traced and cut out.  Ron figured a 2 x 2 sheet of 0.125 aluminum would suffice for the parts I needed.

The sheet comes from the supplier covered in a thin plastic covering on both sides which is a pain to remove:

This particular piece of aluminum had been sitting around the shop for a while and fell victim to a few scratches and dings.  Once I cleaned off the rest of the plastic and adhesive residue I circled any areas of concern and got to work tracing out the parts, nesting them as best as I could, starting with the flapperon arms:

Eventually I managed to fit 25 pieces on the sheet.  It's tough to know the absolute best layout to minimize waste, but I'm only missing a couple of pieces which can be done later:

That's it for this update.  Next up, more 701 wing extension work, bending more tail group parts and rough cutting the 0.125 parts.

So, I got my block/case back from the machine shop.  It was worth every penny to have a professional with a CNC milling machine do the work of drilling out the two broken studs.  His work was incredible and he went as far as to countersink the holes slightly for the TimeSert barrel inserts.  Nice, clean and straight holes, important details:

With that done, it was time today to tackle installing the TimeSert barrel inserts that will make up the replacement threads for the head studs on these two holes.  I've spent more hours than I should have pondering this critcal step, but it wasn't nearly as difficult as I allowed my imagination to believe it could be.

TimeSerts are an elegant solution for replacing damaged in-hole threads in a variety of materials.  They are in my opinion much better than Helicoil wound wire inserts.  I ordered the TimeSert install kit from Clark's Corvairs and the recommended length (0.75 inch) TimeSerts from a local industrial supply shop.  The kit contains all the tools you need to install these:

First step, drill out the hole to the correct size.  The importance of having this hole straight can not be understated.  Although drilling aluminum is easy, best to use a drill press:

The brand new bit that came with the kit was very sharp and made short clean work of the holes.

Next up, the shoulder countersink bit.  The countersink the machinist put in was quite deep enough. The bit has a cutter which creates a countersink shoulder for the top end of the TimeSert allowing it to sit flush on the surface.  Again, the drill press is the only smart way to do this:

Careful application of preasure on the very sharp cutter results in a nicely formed shoulder.

Next up, threading this aluminum hole with the tap provided in the kit.  This tap (also brand new) has four cutting flutes and a flat nose to ensure the hole is completely threaded to the bottom.  This is delicate work that is only done by hand, so it was important to make it perpendicular to the case, ensuring straight threads in the hole.  I used lots of 3-in-1 oil to ease the tap through and keep the threads clean from debris.  The secret is to cut 1/2 a turn, back out 1/2 a turn and repeat:

Once both holes are tapped, it's important to ensure they are cleaned out of any cutting debris.  A blow gun and compressor is perfect.

At this point everything looks good.  Next up is the insert mandrel.

What makes TimeSerts so effective, is their engineering.  The bottom couple of rows of the insert are formed in a way that allows the insert mandrel to cold-roll the threads, pushing them outwards and into the surrounding material, locking the insert in place:

First, a couple drops of oil on the mandrel to ease the insert forming the new threads, then thread the insert partly onto the mandrel:

Once placed in the newly cut holes, the insert threads in easy, up to the shoulder stop.  Continue moving the mandrel forward (in) until it bottoms out: 

Back the mandrel out and the TimeSert stays in place, now permanently attached to the aluminum walls of the hole.  Looks perfect!

Was it really that easy?  YES!

After cutting the matching threads on the two upper (long) studs that will be used with these inserts, I test fitted one.  A good clean fit that will be made real strong with LocTite 620 as per the conversion manual.

I can't explain how relieved I am to be past this part of the head stud saga.  Next steps will be fastening all the studs in permanently with LocTite 620.  Before that, I need to clean the block completely as there are still areas that can use some detail attention.  The suggestions are to either hot tank the block at a tranmission shop, use varsol with stiff brushes and 3M pads or maybe media blast it.  Ron has a sandblasting machine, maybe that would be easiest.  More food for thought.

The other task I completed was the removal of the oil pick-up assembly.  It is press fit into the aluminum:

A little gentle tapping from the oil passage end of the block witha pirce of dowel, and it came right out:

Overall, a very productive 3 hours.  I'm tagging this blog entry as a milestone because it has been bugging me for months to get past it.  Barring any further surprises, this will be my airplane engine.

Now back to making other airplane parts :)

First off, I ordered my plans set today!  Hopefully it won't take long to be shipped from Zenair.  Once I have them, I'll have my very own serial number and I can start going down the road of endless inspection paperwork that needs to be on file with Transport Canada.  I'm trying to decide if I want to reserve a good registration (call letters) or wait and see what they assign..... but that's a bit premature.... ha!

​Four more hours in the shop today.  Continued to open up the salvaged 701 wing.  Wasn't too surprised to find damaged structure inside.  This is the top of the wing at the root where it attaches to the fuselage.  It likely got twisted back from the impact out on the tip of the wing.  Lots of rash damage, probably from improper handling after the crash.

Flipped the wing over and with some drill effort, off comes the wing root fairing, fuel cell inspection cover and lower wing skin.  Whomever built this wing wasn't much of a craftsman (or craftsperson).  Lots of rivets where they shouldn't be, and lots of rivets missing from where they should be.  We also discovered the rear spar channel is way under gauge from what the plans call for.  Seems like someone decided to take a shortcut.

Next step was to drill out the rivets holding in the incorrect rear channel:

It came out easy, but it too has holes in all the wrong places. 

Easy to fix/replace, but after seeing this, we are truly wondering what else we are going to find.

Next up, straighten the inboard main wing rib (on the left in the above picture).  It will require another strip of aluminium (called a doubler) to reinforce the damaged area after we straighten it.

I just two afternoon sessions, I've learned a ton thanks to Ron but I've got a ton more to learn yet!

It took some time, but I finally got back into the shop.  The last few weeks have been real busy between work and family commitments, and I'm trying to keep moving forward.

This afternoon, I took another crack at removing the last two head studs.  Unfortunately, they continue to be stuck half-way out of the block, and by stuck I mean they don't seem to want to go either way (all the way in or all the way out):​

Next, I'm going to try something suggested by some on the interwebs - make a penetrating oil with equal parts acetone and automatic transmission fluid.  So far PB Blaster hasn't worked, so why not?  It apparently works very well in exactly this situation.  So add acetone to the shopping list and check the shed for ATF, I'm certain I have some. 

Rather than dwell on this, I thought I'd take the steps to separate the case halves.  If you recall, I mounted the block sideways on the engine mount to prevent the crank and cam from falling out of the block as it separates.  They came apart surprisingly easy with some light tapping on the non mating surfaces with a rubber mallet:

Getting a good look inside now!  Crank is likely trash, way too much rust and pitting on the connecting rod throw bearings.  The cam?  Hard to say, but it looks bad too and maybe it can be salvaged but probably not. Disappointing, but I already have two good cores for exchange form the 110hp core engine, so no big deal.  Found more rodent debris and I think this core has been sitting dry (without oil) for a long time:

Also conspicuously absent are any bearings.  Looks like someone decided they didn't need to be replaced yet.  That's okay, I'll need specifically sized new ones once the crank and cam are serviced.

Carefully removing the old crank and cam reveals some surface rust on the block bearing surfaces.  I think this is more of a transfer of rust staining from the crank and cam and hopefully they should easily clean up:

I was a bit worried about the bottom edge of the block, but then realized that this mating surface is inside the engine (above the oil pan), so small leaks here although not ideal, are not an issue.  A close look at it looks like this is the spot someone previous used to pry apart the halves:

One final thing I did while putting away the crank was to try giving it the "ring test".  It's something I learned from the FlyCorvair.com DVD.  A simple test used to check a crank for cracks (especially hidden ones) is to hold the crank from one end and give it a light tap with a hammer.  A good crank will "ring" for up to 20 seconds once tapped lightly.

I tried this....  my cranks rings, but not consistently.  The first time it rang for a few seconds, the second time a bit longer but the third?  "Clunk".  Perhaps I'm not striking it consistently.  Either way, this crank is likely junk with all the rust pitting.  Just wanted to try it.

But at least it's all apart and I'll be able to start moving towards assembly of my new power-plant!

Next up....  taking out the oil gallery plugs (if they will come out!), start power-washing and hand cleaning everything....