Saturday May 7, 2022
Misc Riveting, Wheels, Canopy Assembly
(0.7 Hours Aft Fuselage, 1.8 Hours Canopy, 2.1 Hours Landing Gear)
4.5 Hours Total

This morning Emily helped me rivet the few rivets for the aft top skins that I couldn't do by myself. While I was inside the aft fuselage, I bolted on the seatbelt anchors.

I continued to work on the wheel/brake assemblies. Here it is partly assembled.

I fabricated these six little bushings that serve to stand-off the fairing mounting plate from the axle.

This is how the U-810 fairing standoff bolts on.

Unfortunately, these were designed for the Cleveland brakes and Van's is now supplying Matco, so I had to do a little filing to get it to fit. Here's the trimmed piece on the left and the untrimmed on the right.

Here's where the interference was...problem solved.

I have both sides to this point now. I can't really do any more with these until I have the grease to pack the bearings.

I spent a while getting the canopy to rotate without catching on the forward top skin. This involved filing on both skins.

Then, I bolted the plexiglass to the frame permanently.

The next task is to mount the WD-622 canopy latch lugs to the canopy frame. The instructions say "clamp the lugs to the frame," (while it's installed on the fuselage) but there really isn't enough room to do this, so I'm going to think/research the best way to do this part.

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