Yes, my friends, the wings are officially mounted!  Today I bolted the wings to the CS spar for the very first time!  How?!  Well, read on dear readers!  Read on . . . !

Last night I was in a bit of a quandary.  I had been thinking late into the evening on how exactly do I trim the LWA9 bushings to length?  In the plans it says to “face” them… not sure what that is.  I don’t have a lathe, but I do want some nice cuts on the “face” of these LWA9’s.  Hmmmm.  I attempted to do some research online, but to no real avail. Everyone in the universe seems to know how to trim these suckers up except for me!  (I guess this is a common occurrence when building an airplane, eh?!).

So I did what I quite often do when faced with a problem… I went to breakfast!! (this morning, not late last night…).  Ah, it was there that I wondered upon the idea of using a pipe/tubing conduit attachment as a clamp to hold the LWA9 in place.  I would then use my mojamma Bosch miter saw to cut these suckers.  Yep, a plan was developing!

So I went to Home Depot and picked up some of those pipe/tubing conduit attachments. The smallest they had was 1/2″, so I picked up some friction tape as well.  I wandered around the Aviation Electrical section for a few more minutes to see what I could find interesting, when I happened to sight some Adel clamps hanging at the end of the aisle. Hmmm, could also be an interesting proposition . . .

When I got home I “clamped” a couple LWA9s to a scrap 2×4 piece, and then rounded up some -10 Adel clamps & mounted those as well.   I call it the “poor man’s lathe.”

I then pulled out the Bosch mojamma miter saw to see how this all would work.

Ready!

Well, it worked great for the LWA9s in the Adel clamps!  Not so much for the pipe/tubing conduit attachments…. Ooof!  Check out the second LWA9 from the left.  This was round #2 and I took out the 4 freshly cut LWA9s and replaced them with 3 new ones and this mangled one from an attempted cut while mounted in the pipe/tubing conduit attachment.  Luckily it didn’t do any damage inboard of my original cut line, so once I trimmed it in the Adel clamp, there was no trace of the horrors that it had just previously endured!

And here are those same 4 LWA9s after getting a trim.  I tell ya, with a nice sharp saw blade this thing works like a champ!

While I had the saw out, I went ahead and cut my lower 3/16″ thick angled 2024 engine mount extrusions.

Here you can see I cut the lower engine mount extrusions to the plan’s 8″ length.

In addition, as I was brainstorming (just prior to trimming the LWA9s) on all the stuff I needed to cut, to optimize my saw time, I worked up a quick off-the-cuff solution for a bracket to mount inside the CS spar in order to reverse my outboard wing bolts.  This has them essentially permanently mounted sticking aft out of the spar.  The report from many builders who did this is that it makes mounting the wings infinitely easier & faster.  James Redmon –from Berkut 13 fame– did this on his bird, a pic of which I shamelessly stole from his website:

Note that the pic above is of a Berkut, not a Long-EZ, but the concept is the same.  However, as with many things on this build I had to go and complicate it by adding in my 1″ electrical cable conduit hard-mounted inside the spar.  That means instead of simply screwing in a single piece of U-channel, I’ll have to build a more intricate one with a “bridge” to cross over the electrical conduit.  The smaller pieces that will make up one side of the bridge are what I’m cutting below.  Consider this a teaser on the ‘Reverse Wing Bolts Mod’ . . . more to come later!

Moving on, here’s a shot of all 12 LWA9s after I sanded the trimmed face of each one, and then quickly chamfered the outer & inner edges of the new faces.  I also gave them a good bath in Simple Green.

When I went back to the spar & wings my first task was to pick up the spar and flip it around to give me better access and a better angle to work on installing the LWA9s.  And then the darnedest thing happened!

As I was lifting the spar up over my head, it shifted hard to one side and I almost dropped it. I got a hold of it as I was facing the low end of the spar just above the ground. And that’s when I saw a TON of water pouring out one end of it!  Not only was it water, but the aforementioned aluminum soup (which I had cleaned out)!  Of course at that point I tipped, flipped and swirled the CS spar every which way but loose (like what I just did there!) to get all the water out.

When I finished on the spar, I checked out the end of the spar where the water came out, and this is part of what I found!  I went back into the shop to retrieve my shop vac and proceeded (again) to vacuum out this beast.

After giving the spar and the wing bolt hole channels a good cleaning, I then finally got a shot at what I was originally looking for in the first place!  The left wing’s upper outboard LWA9.  I was checking it for fit since I can’t get my hand up there to feel the edge to ensure that it either matches or is lower in height than the surrounding hard point extrusion.

Here’s the left wing’s inboard LWA9, nice & flush!

And here’s the left wing’s upper outboard LWA9 test fitting… lookin’ good! (I have it installed backwards to check the depth as you see in the pic.  Final install was the correct orientation).

Out of 12 bushings I only had to recut one, and that was the left inboard LWA9 in the CS Spar.  Actually, I had to cut it 2 more times before I finally got it to the right depth!

Here’s a couple shots of the left wings’s lower outboard wing bolt hole channel with an LWA9 mounted in the bolt hole.  The upper pic shows the bolt hole channel a little bit better, while in the bottom one you can make out the LWA9.

Here are the temporary wing attach bolts.  I don’t know where I got the info from, but like a maroon I already ordered the big bolts, and guess what??  Yep! Way too short!  So even my mock-up bolts were way too short so I had to run to Home Depot to buy 2-1/2″ bolts just before I got started on all this!  Once I got home, I quickly waxed all the bolts with Turtle Wax.

Here are the measurements of the matching LWA9s back-to-back, which of course is what is used to determine required wing mounting bolt lengths.

………………………….LEFT WING         RIGHT WING
Inboard                             1.67″                      1.66″
Outboard Top                   1.59″                      1.58″
Outboard Bottom             1.62″                      1.61″

With my LWA9s squared away, I then started on installing all 12 LWA9s and bolting the wings to the CS spar for the very first time!!!

I mixed up some MGS 285 epoxy and threw in just enough flox to give it a tad bit thicker consistency.  I then inserted all the CS Spar LWA9s with the wet flox.

I then mounted the LWA9s in the inboard wing bolt holes, slid the inboard bolts in place and lightly tightened a nut in place to ensure the spar stayed put.  I then mounted the outboard LWA9s/wing bolts and tightened them up.  Thankfully, there were no real issues with installing the wing bolts.

And here’s a shot of my wings now hard-mounted to the CS spar!!!

And the same thing from a different angle… again, amazing feeling getting this done & under my belt!

I then rechecked the water level markings and also the wing level board…. seriously, all the numbers still looked really, really good!

Here’s the final shot of the evening with my wings.  Since it’s starting to cool way down at night, I threw some heat blankets over the wings and fired up a couple heat lamps to keep this thing cooking all night long!

Tomorrow I’ll be working to get the fuselage mounted to the CS spar (at a minimum, prepped to be mounted!).  I’m thinking it’s going to be yet another long day!

I started off today right where I left off yesterday . . .  drilling, drilling, drilling, drilling, and then drilling some more.  Let’s say about 5 hours total today, with over 2 hours last night!

Yep, I was one of those builders who used the plan’s spotface tool to drill this sucker out. I can say now that it’s over that I’m glad I used it, because the holes are perfectly round and beautiful!  That being said, if I knew of another really good way (yes, I’ve read about modifying hole saws, reamers and the like, but I went with with the spotface tool… Ironically because the 5/8″ bi-metal hole saw bit I ordered didn’t arrive in time!  ha!)

One of the main reasons it takes so long to drill these holes is heat management.  Yes, it may be a lot better with a different cutting/drilling tool, but with the spotface tool I would drill for 10-15 seconds, blow compressed air into the hole for 20-30 seconds, and then (starting today) wet it down thoroughly with cold water from a water bottle sprayer.  These holes definitely get hot, especially due to the torque!  And this was even more pronounced the deeper into the hole since the entire side of the spotface cutter was contacting the sides of the hole.  Tons ‘o heat generated in this endeavor my friends!  In fact, my cordless drills were struggling when I started out using them (my corded drill was buried away in my shop) and I even smoked one after pushing it too hard… even though I was rotating through 5 different cordless drills!  And let me state for the record that the newer generation Ryobi Lithium batteries are a joke, many of them could barely make it through a couple rounds of holes.

Nonetheless, I eventually got the holes drilled!  Whew!  What a feeling . . . especially when they land in the right spot!  Below is the first light at the end of the tunnel I saw late this afternoon.

Luckily I bought another spotface from McMaster-Carr before I started, because the original one I had was worked HARD!  The swapping of the old to new spotface was a bit of challenge unto itself.  I had to drill out the set screw that was covered over with metal, and then the spotface didn’t want to come off the guide, as if it were welded in place.  I eventually got it of course, but not without some wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Here’s a staged photo showing the spotface just about to go in and do some real damage!!! Ok, maybe just a little bit of damage . . . ahem.

And here’s the other side.  I took this shot to show all the layered extrusions that make up the inboard hardpoint on the wing (this pic was taken later after I pulled off the CS spar).

As I drilled out the inboard wing root bolt hole channels I cleaned them up and then test fitted an LWA9 bushing into the hole to see how it fit.  The LWA9 bushing fit perfectly in each side.  I then slid in one of my test bolts just to see how it would fit as well.  With the bolt I was specifically curious to see its spacing since my hole is actually a hair low on the extrusion.  But as you can see, there’s plenty of “meat” below the bolt to hold it in place.  I have no doubt these hard points are 100% the strength of what they should be.

In the pics below, the top row is the right wing root and the bottom row is the left:

Below is the after affects of drilling out the inboard wing mounting bolt holes.  Since I was using both air and water to clean out & cool the holes, it created an “aluminum soup” on the inner floor of the CS spar.

Also, here’s my abstract airplane art shot that I took using all the extrusion rings that I drilled out during this very long process.

I also wanted to document my water level marks for each of the points of the wing that I was checking.  The blue lines you see on the tubing are marked for waterlines other than the 17.4 WL.

Below is the inboard TE of each wing at BL 23.  Since this curves up just a tad to intersect the cowling, according to plans it’s at WL 17.5.  Just as a note, the distance between my two inboard TE corners was exactly 46″…. I like it!  Also note, that although the levels at the following points may not be aligned perfectly with the water line (or the blue line), they are very close and also match pretty darn symmetrical between right & left wings.

Here’s the outboard TE at BL157, with the right wing in the top pic.  Since the wing slopes as it goes outboard on the TE and down from TE to LE, this WL sits at 18.35 (again, the blue line).  So even though these look terribly high compared to the actual reddish water level line, they are within about 0.1″ off from being spot on.  Another point I need to make is that the red water level fluid is a bit low after sitting out all night long (you can really see this in the pics above since the blue line is a bit farther off than 0.1″).

Finally, the outboard LE at WL 17.4, which of course is the water line for the entire leading edge.

After rechecking and verifying my water level marks, it was time to remove the CS spar from the wings (aka “Bondo Destruction Time”).

I removed all the bondo that I could get to on the top & bottom of the CS spar & wing junctions.

I then cracked the CS spar loose and turned it on its face.  Then I got to work removing even more bondo.

Here’s the right side of the upended spar requiring more bondo removal.

I also washed all the gray aluminum grime from around the bolt holes with Simple Green and was very happy to find no delams!

I then started work on the LWA9 bushings.  I put them by their respective holes and marked them up so that they would match the depth of the specific hole they were being cut for.  I then measured the depth of each hole using the recommended hole depth checker identified in the plans [NOTE: As I was cleaning up the next day I found a depth checker in the bag that the Cozy Girrrls shipped the LWA9s… oh, well!  Just a point of note that if you buy these from the CG’s that it comes with a depth checker, so you don’t have to spend an extra 5 minutes making one!]

I then packed up all the tools for the night, and marked up all my LWA9s for trimming.

Tomorrow I’ll trim up all the LWA9s and then mount them in the spar & wing bolt holes with flox… and my temporary wing bolts.

I started off today reviewing the plans on installing the wings to the CS spar… to ensure I don’t miss anything.

Then I constructed the water level system.  I have 2 shots of that below, just to ensure some clarity.

The jug in the foreground is the actual reservoir for the water level system, while the milk jug in the back is simply the Kool-Aid colored fluid (plus a little dish soap) for the water level.

Here’s a closeup shot of the water level reservoir.  It’s a bit out of focus, but you can see one of the two lines coming out of the bottom of the water level reservoir jug with a grommet installed to seal it all up.  Also, note that the water level in the main reservoir is matched level with WL 17.4.

Here’s a quick video I shot detailing the general features of my water level system:

The water level is an amazing tool that allowed me to really dial in the rigging of the wings to the CS spar.  Below is a shot of the Right Wing after I leveled it out and bondo’d it in place.  Let me tell you, the term “herding cats” that all the other builders use to describe this part of the build is amazingly appropriate.  It took about 2 hours per wing to really get all the variables synchronized to get the wings to level out appropriately.  I remained about 0.15″ high on outboard leading and trailing edges, but I’ll take that!

Here’s a wide angle shot showing the right wing rigged and work on the left wing to get it set.

And here’s a couple shots of the left wing as I worked to get it level.  The left wing took significantly longer than the right wing, and after getting all but the front inboard edge aligned, I finally (out of curiosity) set up the laser level to check the leading edges of both wings.  For some reason my level board was way off on my left wing, so I committed a cardinal sin and went with the good level measurements on the other 3 corners, and used the laser level to fix the front corner (the BL 55.5 jut out) to match the right wing.  One overriding reason I did this is the statement in the plans on pg 19-18: “Incidence must be set exact, or the airplane will roll.”  Now, at that point the plans are talking about the setting of the level boards to 0°, but I also take that statement to mean the wings leveled in concert & in comparison to each other.   Regardless, it certainly made everything work and align well on the left wing after I made the decision to use the laser level to match the leading edges vs going with the level board.

Here’s a shot of the right wing after it was secured in place by bondo.  Both my wings are about 0.15″ high on the outboard end, but as I measured everything I concluded that my wings are definitely symmetrical!

After I bondo’d the left wing, I prepped for drilling the 1/8″ pilot holes through the front spare face and into the wing hard point extrusions.

Below is a shot of the right wing’s inboard extrusion.  Since I had to lift the inboard wing roots as high as they could feasibly go to align the wings, it lifted the embedded extrusions as well.  Thus, the drilling is a little low to what I want on the inboard wing extrusions, but not too serious.  I will also try to cheat the hole upwards as I drill out the bigger extrusion holes.

Here’s the same exact thing on the left side.

I will tell you one area that I’m ecstatic with, and that’s that I was able to get the 1/8″ pilot holes pretty much in the exact center of all the wing bolt troughs!  *** whew!!!! *** I think this honestly must be the most anxiety that a canard builder can feel is when drilling these holes!

This shot is a bit blurry, but you can see the drill bit in it.

After all the 1/8″ pilot holes were drilled and verified, I then opened up the holes to 1/4″ as called out in the plans.

Below is both the right and left spar faces with 1/4″ pilot holes.

I then grabbed my 5/8″ spot face tool and opened up all the forward spar face holes with it.

Here’s the right side holes opened up to 5/8″.

And another wider angle shot of the right side CS spar front face with the wing mounting holes opened up to 5/8″

After opening up the front spot face holes I then drilled the CS spar and main wing extrusion holes for a bit over 2 hours.  I was having drill & drill battery problems, plus it was dark, so about 2100 I called it quits and packed up all my gear.  I figure I got anywhere from a half to 3/4 of the way through on these holes.

I have another spot face bit, so tomorrow I plan on getting through the holes in no more than about 2 hours.  From there I’ll trim and then flox in the LWA9 wing bolt hole inserts & let them cure in place overnight.

Today I started off by calling the folks at EFII to query them on my options for mounting my EFII fuel pump.  In my research on fuel pumps, the position of the pump in relation to the fuel IN feed line is important, with a general requirement that the fuel pump be situated at a lower point than the IN fuel feed.  Since I was thinking about mounting the fuel pump directly to the bottom of the CS Spar in the hell hole, I wanted to make sure I could do this without violating any conventional wisdom mandates.  Well, as it turns out –and this is directly from the EFII horse’s mouth– it doesn’t matter the elevation of the pump vs the feed line, as long the pump is mounted horizontally.

Still, after taking the pump down to the shop and mocking it up in a few locations, I decided the hell hole was going to be a crowded place, both in components making their residence there and with all the transient elements (fuel lines, cable antennas, wiring, cables, etc.) coming and going, let alone the exact space required for my RAM air intake. So I decided to kick this fuel pump can down the road and wait until I get closer to HAVING to install it.

Another sideline question that I asked yesterday, and got a response on, was from the folks at Radenna SkyRadar.  I asked a couple of questions on their SkyRadar-DX
ADS-B receiver that I’ll be using:  First, I wanted to know if I could mount the GPS antenna puck directly on top of the unit (I can!) and, second, I wanted to know if I could get a shorter GPS antenna cable (I can’t).  Alexey from Radenna explained that the long GPS cables are pretty standard, and the reason for it is to provide proper attenuation for the LNA which is inside the unit.  He also explained that it is possible to find an antenna with a shorter cable, but not in such a small form factor as the one that comes with the SkyRadar-DX.  He also provided this helpful link from MGL explaining how to coil up the GPS antenna lead.

Clearly gathering intel is good, but actual work needs to be done!  My first task of the day was swapping out the longer AN4-22A axle bolts on the left gear for the shorter AN4-21A axle bolts like I did on the right side gear leg.  This didn’t really take long, but eventually I did have to remove the brake assembly to get to the axle bolts (remember this key point!).

Actually, I was able to swap out 3 of the 4 axle bolts, but I just couldn’t get a wrench on bolt head of the aft bottom axle bolt (it sits right next to the axle… too close for a socket).

Here’s a shot of the axle bolts: new AN4-21A on the left and old (longer) AN4-22A on the right.

You can see the last holdout below, the whole reason why I had to remove the entire brake assembly (again, remember this point!).

Here’s a shot with the brake caliper assembly removed and all the new shorter axle bolts in place.

I then reassembled the left side brake assembly.  I torqued all the bolts to the proper specs as outlined by Matco.  I also torqued the right-side brake assembly bolts as well, but something wasn’t right and I ended up dismantling & remounting the entire right side brake assembly again.  The second time was a charm and the brake disc aligned correctly between the pads & I was able to get the bolts torqued to the correct values.

Although I didn’t get a shot of the wheels, I then remounted the wheel/tire assemblies with their freshly packed bearings.  I then went upstairs to review my notes on wheel pants, only to find a discussion from Bernie Siu on how each time he modified the inboard wheel pant mount assembly, he had to totally dismantle the wheel assemblies TO GET TO THE AXLE BOLT HEADS TO REMOVE THE INBOARD NUTS to swap the inboard wheel pant mount…. Doh!  I guess this won’t be the last time I mount those wheels, eh?!

Regardless, I pressed forward with rigging the fuselage in a 1.5° nose up attitude to facilitate making the cardboard silhouettes called out for in the wheel pant installation instructions to mount the wheel pants.

With the fuselage set at the correct nose up attitude, I then set out to do what I had planned on doing yesterday: building the sawhorses to which to mount the wings & CS spar on, in turn to allow me to mount the former to the latter!

I dialed in the heights and lengths on the sawhorses and begin cutting the 2×4 lumber.  Below is a shot of the respective top boards for all the sawhorses.

I got all the tops & top cross pieces cut, but when it came to the legs I was only able to squeak out 9 legs, out of the required 20 . . . Yikes!  I decided to go ahead and build the first 2 sawhorses and then make a run to pick up more lumber.  Instead of using screws to put these sawhorses together, I decided to go the faster route and pulled out my mojamma framing nailer.

It took less than 20 min and I whipped up these babies.  The narrower sawhorse to the left is for the outboard wing and the one on the right is to support the main body of the CS spar.  Ok, 2 down and 3 to go!  By the way, I should note that I shamelessly stole the design for these sawhorses from my buddy Mike Beasley.

It was actually a pretty good thing that I decided to cut the legs for the middle CS spar sawhorse and the 2 outboard wing sawhorses first.  Why?  Well, when drawing up my plan for these sawhorses, I was mentally going off of what Wayne Hicks and Mike Beasley did when they mounted their wings to the CS spar.  They both pulled out their TWO wing jig #4’s and used them, one on each wing.  Then it hit me (a few DOH moments today!), I only have ONE wing jig #4!  And I don’t plan on making another one…

You see, I had accounted for the distance between the bottom of the wing jig and bottom of the wing and was going to subtract this from the height of these 2 inboard sawhorses when I had my mini-epiphany.  I’m just thankful I caught it before making 2 sawhorses that were too short (obviously too tall would have been workable).

I packed up all my saws, tools & gear and put them in the garage before heading out to get more 2x4s.  Upon my return to the house, I unloaded the lumber and then got to work sanding the mating surfaces of the wheel pants.  I worked on both sides of one wheel pant for nearly an hour, and it did go back together easier . . . somewhat.

I then started on the aft end of the second wheel pant.  The flange on the aft side pant isn’t too terrible difficult to sand, but the inside edge of the front side wheel pant is a bit more challenging.  After nearly 1-1/2 hours of straight sanding, I decided to punt and use the Dremel Tool tomorrow on the front side.

On the wheel pant that I did fully sand, I followed Bernie Siu’s method of verifying the front midpoint meets the aft midpoint meets the side midpoint.  In other words, I set out to ensure that the midpoint waterline was straight horizontally all the way across my wheel pant… which it wasn’t.  The nose was about 0.5″ high, so I had to work the wheel pant back and forth to get the nose down so that all the lines matched up with less than a 0.1″ discrepancy (these are naturally odd shaped wheel pants that are not symmetrical…I’ll take less than 0.1″ any day!).

To reiterate, I plan on working on the wheel pants as far as I can in the plans without actually installing them.  Again, I want to have as much wheel pant “money” in the “bank” for later on so that I’m not spending a lot of time on these after I have the bird flying.  It also gives me something to do during quiet hours when I’m not making loud noises prepping for the wing install.

I won’t be getting a lot done tomorrow, since my social duties are beckoning me!  But I do plan on getting quite a bit done on Saturday.  If everything works out right, I should be starting on mounting the wings to the CS Spar early next week!

I started off today doing a couple hours of updates, maintenance and page additions to this website.

I then created a to-do/task sheet for mounting the wings to the CS spar, free-associating any task I could think of related to the process, and then printed out the sheet.  From there, I ran out to grab a bite to eat with sheet in hand and added a bunch more to it while I sat there pondering the wing attach steps.  I also drew out a basic diagram of the multi-legged (or “spidered”) water level that I will need to incorporate to ensure the wings are level at all the right spots before drilling the wing attach bolt holes.  I then went home and inventoried all my clear plastic tubing and associated fittings.  I should also mention that when I got home there was a delivery from Amazon which contained my Wheel Bearing Packer.

I also drew out the dimensions for the saw horses and was about ready to go outside to cut up the 2x4s I bought the other day when it started pouring down rain.  Oh well.  So instead I jumped in the truck and headed to the Woodbridge Lowe’s to secure 40′ more of plastic tubing and a few more “T” fittings.  I know a lot of builders use PVC pipe in their water level setups due to the low cost, but I don’t like NOT being able to see any air bubbles in the line since it can/could really throw off a level reading.

I already had 50′ on hand from a water level that I had bought for another project, added to another 12′ from the shop, which gave me over 60 feet of tubing.  I calculated at lunch that I would need around 100′ for the water level setup I’ll employ… which is pretty much identical to Bernie Siu’s as far as the wing points that I’ll be measuring.

After I returned home from my foraging for parts at the Aviation Department at Lowe’s, I figured it was time to put the main gear wheels back together.  It was still raining a fair amount so I didn’t want to move the bike outside, which meant no space to really work on the wheel pants.  Besides, if I can get my plan into motion I’ll need to be able roll the fuselage around on all 3 gear, which of course means the main wheels need to be remounted… properly!

I grabbed the packet of 0.007″ stainless steel washer shims that I got from McMaster-Carr and pulled out a couple.  I then removed the axle & brake caliper mount assembly and swapped out the longer bolts with shorter AN4-21 bolts.  I then put a thin 0.007″ shim on each of the forward axle bolts.  Although these washers are very thin, the affect at 24″ inches forward of the wheel is that they should kick the toe-in out enough to match the left side toe-in and distance from centerline.

I remounted the axle, brake caliper mount and heat shield.  Since I wanted to get to packing the wheel bearings with grease, I left the torquing of the brake assembly bolts until tomorrow.

Here’s my freshly delivered wheel bearing grease packer:

I grabbed my tube of aviation grade grease . . .

and put a good amount of it in the bearing packer cup.

Here’s a close-up shot of the Mobilegrease 28.

I then reset the inner base with its integral o-ring back into the cup.

And grabbed the first wheel bearing off the right wheel to test out my new toy.

Here it is, all set to go.  Just need a good bit of pressure to get the grease to squeeze into the bearing cups.

Like this.

Here’s a couple shots after with the upper plunger body removed.

I then removed the bearings from the cup, cleaned off the excess grease, and reset them back into the wheel.  Before actually seating the bearings, I cleaned the race with a very light coat of grease.

Here’s bearing #2 after getting packed with grease.  I have to say, this wheel bearing packer works pretty darn good!

After I finished packing all 4 bearings (2 per wheel) I set the red cover into place to keep the grease fresh & clean, and cleaned up the grease on the tube & recapped it.

My goal for tomorrow is to get a fair amount done on the wheel pants (lots of sanding!) and as much done as possible on the preparations for mounting the wings to the CS spar.

Today I started off by logging in the recent Mouser order that I just received.  Specifically, I figured out where a couple switches that were in that order actually went.  So I labeled a few switches and updated my panel & switch diagram.

I’ll note for the record that yesterday I went to Lowe’s and bought 8 each 10′ 2x4s specifically for building sawhorses to mount the wings to the CS spar.

Today I also went to Lowe’s & Home Depot to research PVC tubing and fittings availability for the water level that will be used in mounting the wings to the CS spar.  I also did a fair amount of research online of other builders and incorporated their lessons-learned into my plan.

As far as wheel pants, below is a shot of the pre-widened wheel pants along with a shot of the widened wheel pants.

Before:

After:

Back to following Wayne Hick’s steps for mounting the wheel pants, I squared up the receivers on the front wheel pant assemblies and the flanges on the aft side wheel pant assemblies.  After I squared up the wheel pant mating areas, I sanded down the internal edges of the front wheel pant sides and the flanges on the aft wheel pant sides to prep them for mounting.

Now, Sam James –who makes these wheel pants– will tell you that you have to cut the wheel slots before the aft flanges will fully fit into the front wheel pant sides’ receivers.  In fact, both before & after I widened the wheel pants, the best I could get in assembling the wheel pants was 3 corners in with one corner prominently hanging out.  Well, I guess these are still exactly the same after I widened the wheel pants!!

Nonetheless, I set the wheel pants up as closely as possible to being a mated pair and shot a couple of pics below:

And here’s a head on shot with the wheel pants almost mated together….

I then rechecked the centerlines and waterlines as compared to the ones I had measured “pre-widening.”  I have to tell you that although I was double-checking center mass/center lines, it was nice that everything looked spot on after the wheel pant widening.

Here’s another shot after all the CL’s and Water Lines were marked.

I then checked the front wheel pant parts to find both the Centers & the Waterline.

Here’s another shot of the forward side wheel pant getting measured for actual width and actual centerline.

Here’s the final result of finding the wheel pants’ nose CL.

Tomorrow I am going to finish up as much as I can on the wheel pants so I can move on to working the plan to mount the wings to the CS spar, and then the CS spar to the fuselage.