I started out this morning by whipping up some EZ-Poxy dry micro with E-Z 87B hardener and laying it into the fuel probe wire channel on each strake top.  I have taped-up stir sticks and toothpicks in place to secure the wires at the bottom of each channel to keep them as far away from the surface as possible… for when I eventually sand the foam tops of the strakes, pre-glassing.

I then got busy drilling out the outboard ends of each CS151 aileron torque tube to allow me to bolt it to the aileron Universal Joint.

I got both CS151 aileron torque tubes drilled and bolted onto the aileron U-joints using the plans called-for AN3-11A bolts… more on those below.

A wide angle shot of the CS151 aileron torque tubes bolted to the ailerons.

I then took a “break,” grabbed my right winglet and sanded it outside in front of my shop. It cleaned up nicely and is now ready for install, subsequent glassing and micro finish.  I plan on sanding the left winglet tomorrow.

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I’ll first digress for a bit in saying that while I was in the Air Force I was part of a number of multi-month/year long deployments, exercises, etc.  An odd feature that us deployed bubbas recognized was that things were bearable up until the last few weeks of the deployment.  When you know that you’re rotating back stateside in just a mere few weeks, things that you dealt with for a year suddenly became irritating as all get-out. The closeness of normality just out of reach caused all the idiosyncrasies of the current crappy situation to magnify all the crappiness of each little thing.

So just maybe I am getting really close to finishing this bird, because my irritation level for seemingly unwarranted BS is pinging rather high.

Now, I’m not trying to make this ‘Bash Cozy Girrrls’ week or anybody else, but another issue that Ary pointed out on his blog was that the CS152 through-root-bearing-tube      —that attaches the CS132 weldment inside the wing root to the CS151 aileron torque tube inside the inboard wing channel— comes pre-drilled and set inside the CS132.

The issue is that per plans the CS132 must be set at 90° to the CS129 control tube WHILE the aileron is at 0°.  If the aileron/CS151 combo is installed and the aileron secured at 0°, then setting the CS132 weldment at 90° to the CS129 needs to all occur inside the wing root… in other words, the variable being manipulated needs to be the CS132 placement (clocking) onto the CS152 tube.

With the CS152 pre-drilled and attached to the CS132 weldment, this variable is now moved BEHIND (read: out of sight) the wing root bearing at the CS152 attachment point to CS151.  Clearly this infuses a level of complexity that could very easily result in aileron control system components being misaligned… Ary solved this issue by simply using another piece of tubing for the CS152 tubing and eliminated the pre-drilled issue that way.

Having more time to ponder on it, I simply decided to reverse the CS152 tube and pre-mount it to the CS151 aileron torque tube.  This moves the CS132/CS129 90° angle finding exercise back into the wing root and puts the CS152-to-CS151 as a known quantity (aka ‘constant’).

[As a point of note and to be fair, I wasn’t sure if I was missing something so I talked to Chrissi about this exact issue a couple months back… with no real resolution.  We had a long conversation about a multitude of other things and I am truly extremely fond of both her and Randi… but these build issues still need to be dealt with and addressed, IMO].

I measured the width of the wing root bearing, the attach tube portion of CS132, the 1/4″ spacing on each side of the wing root bearing, and the remaining portion of the CS152 tube that would be left to insert into the inboard end of CS151.  I then marked CS151 for drilling.

And prepped CS151 for drilling to mount CS152.

Once I drilled CS151 and bolted CS152 into place, I test-fitted the wing root bearing and CS132 into place to get a visual on if my measurements were correct.  They were… Bingo!

Here we have the CS152 4130 steel tubes bolted into the inboard ends of the CS151 aileron torque tubes using the plans called-out AN3-11A bolts… again, remember these bolts!

Why remember these AN3-11A bolts?!  Because they are TOO friggin’ long!!!! At least for my set up.  When I finished out the wing aileron cut out shear web I naturally overlapped it into the entrance of the channel where the CS151 runs inboard to the wing root rib.  Well, the AN3-11As are so long that on my right aileron it literally locked the CS151 into this channel and in forcibly removing the aileron I inadvertently dinged one edge.

I hadn’t yet put the left aileron/CS151 combo into the left wing yet, so I immediately swapped out the two AN3-11A bolts for the only two AN3-10A bolts I had on hand… and yep, 2 threads showing!

Even then I had clearance issues with my left aileron inside that channel.  Not nearly as bad as the right side.  When I pulled out the right aileron I lopped off that excess crap with my Dremel Tool.

Now, my wing cores are Feather Light, so I am not entirely sure what is going on… since 1-2 plies of BID inside the entrance to that aileron torque tube channel shouldn’t be causing such hate and discontent with these bolts… but it is/was.  And I can’t imagine I’m the first builder to have this issue.

Regardless, I shoved my Dremel Tool cutoff disk down into the opening of the channel and ground away the interior glass to remove what was the glassed wall of the channel —again, just a few inches into the channel— to allow clearance for these damn bolts!

After this round of playing Johnny F— Around in my naivety of following the plans (I’ll note those bolts just looked way too long when I installed them) and correcting even more needless BS, I then installed the aileron/U-joint/CS151/CS152 assembly into each wing, capped off by then mounting the wing root bearing with CS152 exiting into the wing root as it should.

I then set the CS132 weldments in place.  Tomorrow I plan on getting those, the CS129 control tubes and the remaining wing root aileron control tube components mounted.

I’ll further note that I checked the swing of the ailerons and for each wing the minimum I’m getting from aileron trailing edge to wing trailing edge is about 2.25 inches.

And with that, I closed up shop to have dinner and a well-deserved libation.