I digress…

I had to buy my own mains and looking at my budget had to decide where to spend $ for those little extras.  Landing gear was not on that list.  For what I’d spend on fancier Aluminum (and admittedly lighter, cooler looking and more straightforward) I could get standard steel legs, fairings and enough left over for a Todd’s Canopy, get my seats covered locally.

Thanks to Vern Darly for alerting me, one day someone put up a set of brand new gear legs (still in the wrapper from Vans), hardware and the fairings.  I got the whole shootin’ match for I think about $300 plus shipping.  ‘Nough said about costs savings.

However as I am in the gear install phase, I finally opened them up, laid them out only to notice they didn’t match.  Something was wrong.

The ears on each end were bent out with the end that attaches to the fuse out by about 3/8′ (see image below):

You get the idea (Click to enlarge)

I was a little concerned as Van’s has a policy that they will not replace or swap parts if you are a second hand purchaser, even for new parts.  I was concerned about how to best go about fixing this.  Without adjustment the right gear (bent gear leg) would cause the right side of the aircraft to be lower and not set level.

However as I talked to another RV builder (Smokey Ray) about it I happened to mention that there was also a bow in the main section  of that leg (between the two ears) and the light came on:  All I needed to do was get that section straightened by taking out that slight bow and the ends should be back in the correct angle.  I’m off today to get that done or find a shop locally to do it.

Here is a shot showing the bow.  I know it’s kind of hard to see, but you get the idea:

Notice the gap along the straight edge in center (Click to enlarge)

Closeup with gap highlighted (Click to enlarge)

My question is: How’d these get out of the door like this?  QC? Oh well, at least it’s fixable.

It looked to be fairly simple, but as I tried to wiggle the tailwheel weldment (WD409) into place without removing anything significant  that proved impossible.

Then I tried simply to start the cutout for the tube, hoping it would free up enough room for rear part for the weldment to poke through the skin and allow the piece to settle into position.  No joy there either.

Finally the last resort choice was to drill out the skin, and lift it up, clam-shell style,  enough so that the weldment would pop into place, which it did. (see below)

Side View: Sorry, it's a little blurry, but it was late when I remembered to shoot this. WD409 weldment placed for alignment before drilling and painting. . But you get the idea. (Click on image to enlarge)

___________________

Here is a rear view placing and preparing to drill.

Rear view: This just shows the assebly laying in it's slot (Click on image to enlarge)

____________________________

WD-409 painted and the AN4 bolts torqued.  The original primer got fairly scuffed in during the surgery but I’ll buff out and repaint everything before re-assembly.

Click to enlarge

___________________________

Notch cut out started (Click to enlarge)

__________________________

Notice reference marks made with Sharpie before I removed the skin to help in repositioning the  skin correctly.  The reason is that the bulkheads are a little flexible and will shift as the skin is re-positioned so using the the rivet holes alone as a reference isn’t good.

WD 409 in, skin cleco'd and ready to rivet back (Click to enlarge)

________________________
Tomorrow I’ll get it zipped up (i.e. riveted) and start on the main gear install.  Sah-weeeet!

As you can see there is a good 1/4" to 3/8" that the F802C can still go over (Click to enlarge)

What I noticed was that the F802-C (the top plate on the gear tower-see photo) and it’s overlap of the F887 top longeron seem off a tad.  According to Van’s drawings, the overlapping aluminum should pretty much cover the top lonergon up to the F822 side skin.  There is between a 1/4″ to 3/8″ gap (again, see photo).  It is possible for me to “nudge” it over, but only about another 1/8″.  This would give me reasonable edge distance for riveting, but still not cover the top longeron per drawings.

I placed a thred on Van’s Air Force forums and will see what some of the other builders say and post that here.  Feel free to post here as well if you are a builder and have input.

The reason I post this is that the parts are all -1 (pre-punched parts) and it would have been difficult if not impossible for me to have anything mis-aligned due to to my error.

_________________________________

March 3, 2010 Followup

Here it is after drilling complete with 1/8" gap (Click to enlarge)

I was able to get good alignment with just palm pressure, but went ahead and used ratchet straps just to hold things in place while I drilled.  Ended with 1/8″ gap between  802C and outer edge of  F887 longeron.  Good  enough.  Here is a final photo (left).

This is not my design, but a common approach already completed by many RV-8 builders.  This is just a photo log of my gear tower mod project.

There are many people who have done this many ways.  Special thanks to Axel Alvarez for his template which he kindly mailed to me.  Thanks Alex! If you want to see any photos bigger for detail, just click on the image and it will enlarge significantly (800 x 500 pixels+/-)

____________________________________

Here is the whole shootin' match, the RV-8 gear tower assembly, cleco'd together before the mod (Click to enlarge)

Essentially this revolves around one of the gear tower pieces, F-802C (in my pre-1 plans) being modified so that you can get inside the gear tower structure to (buck rivets, tighten nuts, fittings) without losing your religion.

Close-up of the offending F-802C (Click to enlarge)

First off, why do it? Well my hands and forearms are just too darn big to do much through those tiny holes, much less, hold a bucking bar or turn a wrench.

_______________________________

Take a straight edge and draw two lines with a Sharpie (Click to enlarge)

So what’s a guy to do?  Cut out this web of .040 aluminum (the area between the Sharpie lines)

But the question is always, “Won’t that weaken this crucial area?”

Well, I’m just an A&P and not an engineer.  I understand what is going on (stress factors) but have relied on others (an aeronautical engineer/RV-8 builder for example) to run the numbers and show that the mod, may if anything make this area stronger!

Here is what the removed piece amounts to.  Not much!

It aint much! (Click to enlarge)

___________________________________

Finished cutout (Click to enlarge)

Here is the completed F-802C top plate with cut-out done.(left side only here)

__________________________________

.040 cover and template (Click to enlarge)

Next you need another piece of .040 2024 to make the cover plate.  Thanks to local RV builder, Mike “Fossil” Ballard, who had two 8 x 12 spare pieces in his shop, I was able to get it done quickly.

Several guys have good info on the Van Airforce site also on this (Mike Stewart, Dan Horton and Alex Alvarez)  They all ran the numbers and I was convinced it was a safe mod.  Mike’s is a little more straightforward, but he hasn’t had any problems with his version.

Alex went so far as to make his template available.  I made my own based on his description and was happy to see his template matched mine.  Nice thing about his was he already had the holes marked, which saved me a few more precious minutes.

____________________________________

Marking the top plate for drilling (Click to enlarge)

Nuff said.  Don’t wonder or ask what the vise grip is on there for.  I forget.

____________________________________

Match drilling the two pieces with pilot holes (Click to enlarge)

I positioned the cover plate over the hole in the F-802 piece with the side angles cleco’d on to make sure spacing didn’t get off (look at the back side of the F-802C). I then drilled the top (of radius) holes on each end, cleco’d those then drilled the rest all with #40 drill for pilot holes.

______________________________________

Top plate with pilots for #19 holes (later) and additional holes for nut plates. (Click to enlarge)

Next I removed the top plate after match drilling, and marked and drilled for the K-1100 nut plates.

____________________________________

Nut plates installed. Squeezer is great here! (Click to enlarge)

I went ahead and drilled all the holes for screws the correct sizes (#19 for the screws and others already done with #40 for nutplate rivets)

___________________________________

Dimpled both pieces with dimple dies. (Click to enlarge)

I guess you could mechanically countersink these, but being where it is, I (personal preference) didn’t want to removed any more material.  So I dimpled these.

_____________________________________

Here it is temporarily cleco'd in for reference & scale (Click to enlarge)

In the end, there are several ways to skin this cat.  Of course, many people have built their 8’s without this mod and that’s fine.

But as for me and my hands….I’m pleased with the result.

O-360, Slick Mags and 14mm auto plugs (Click to enlarge)

I’ve seen this question pop up on forums: “Can you use 14mm plugs with Slick Mags?”

The engine I have for my RV-8 is a zero time O-360 (B2B) from Schmidt Aviation in Florida (@ FXE).  It is set up with Slick mags and uses 14mm Auto plugs.

This is just a short post and photo of that about the plugs and Slick combo as opposed to the more common EI with auto plugs.

It was test run at Schmidt has new cylinders, fuel pump, oil pump, and starter.  Everything else is re manufactured at Schmidt.

Here we are with new -8 skins cleco'd on. Yeah! (Click to enlarge)

Getting the twist in the lower longerons on each end and the “flair” to the rear of each longeron was more mentally fatiguing than doing it.

Once those were done, I cleco’d the side skins on, added the firewall, and began playing with relocating everything to match the firewall and existing top longeron holes and placement.  Again, no biggy.

Next, starting with the left side, using the tabs on the side skin for reference and some pincher visegrips I drilled through the sideskin holes in a few key locations, cleco’d those, then did the rest.  Ditto for right side.

Now slip in the bottom skin, cleco’d it along the spar on each front & back row, matched up the lower longerons with the side of the bottom skin and again, drilled a few key holes, cleco’d them, then did the rest.

Done.

Next step will be to dimple as needed, prep the lower longerones (countersink as needed, prime etc).

Here I am drilling out the rivest to get the side skins off. I like to use a slightly undersized drill when doing this so as to minimize chance of buggering up the hole. (Click to enlarge)

Actually the process of converting the RV-8A to an -8 starts by removing the firewall, foreward left, right and bottom skins.  Because the previous owner thought ahead, he stopped before riveting everything together and used just enough rivets to make the fuselage sturdy for handling like moving around the shop.

I only had to remove a total of about 70 rivets and some AN hardware and the whole process took about an hour.

Next step will be remove the needed parts from the old skins (misc. brackets, nut plates & hardware I can re-use, etc.) and re-rivet onto new skins, dimple the new skins, twist and drill the new bottom aluminum angles, then simply re-install the three skins and firewall.

Everything off with only the two top longerons exposed and spar section. Notice to the left on the floor the old skins, and to the right on the floor the new skins (Click to enlarge)

After that, install the gear towers and bottom cooling panels.

Once I get the towers in it’s time get’r on her legs and install the tailwheel.

Stay tuned!

So tonight that was accomplished.  Pretty straight forward.

Make F-817 plate
Countersink and prime F-817
Attach F-817 (see notes on riveting)
Position WD-808 (seatback) in relation to rails & drill holes
Make spacer & prime
Attach WD-808 with AN hardware, torque 20-25 in. pounds
Done.

NOTES:

1. Main thing as I saw it was to make sure WD-808 is level and distance from center-top of rear seat bulkhead and any given hole (L&R) was the same. Make sure fuse is level, left to right, or leveling the WD-808 bar is exercise in futility.
2. Also, I was fortunate that the WD-808 fit perfectly without needing any pulling in or pushing out of the fuse structure as suggested might be needed in the manual.
3. Riveting the uppermost rivets in the F-817 plate are tough.  I ended up using some very large end wrenches (1-1/2″ & 1-1/4″) as bucking bars.  Worked surprisingly well (some are on floor in photo).
4. I had hard time finding distance from WD-808 to top edge of F-817.  It’s 8/32″ mas o’ menos.

Here are a couple of “enroute” photos of the process. Click on the images to enlarge them.

WD-808 in place. I measured every possible distance and used level to make sure we were okdoky. (Click to enlarge)

Close-up before final drilling. Almost missed the detail showing the approx 8/32 edge distance of WD-808 to top of F-817 to make room for spacer (Click to enlarge)

With our daughter, Sarah (3rd from left) at her senior art exhibit at Cal Baptists University in Riverside, CA. Click to enlarge

Was just getting seat back weldment about ready to install [preparing to remove the forward structure] and had a previous trip for my daughter’s senior art show in Los Angeles.  Oh, well.  Really good part is she graduates from college in a month!

She is a talented artist who actually wants to work in art museums in the curator area someday.

Once I get back I’ll get the WD-808 bolted on for extra support laterally and just as an extra measure of rigidity, then off comes the bottom skins, side skins and the two bottom aluminum angle pieces.  That’ll take all of ten minutes.

Then I’ll just need to drill the angles to match the skins and “get’r done”.

Patience may be a virtue, but it’s hard to be virtuous being so close yet so far.

Videos will start flowing during this phase.

While waiting on some tools from Avery, I went ahead and cleco'd the towers just for fun. Click to enlarge

Well this is post number one on this adventure.

The first thing I will be doing  is converting a partially finished RV-8A (tricycle gear) to a conventional gear arrangement (i.e. taildragger) also know as the RV-8.  A lot of people on the forums cautioned and wondered if this was even feasible.  Yes it is in my case.  Here’s why:

1. I bought the project at just the right point to make the conversion relatively easy, albeit drilling out about 100 rivets and replace a few skins.
2. None of the 8A gear [tower] structure had been added
3. The replacement parts vs. the resale value of the parts on hand (all new: legs, towers, engine mount, front wheel/tire) will just about balance each other out even considering the discounting for second hand parts on the forums.

That said, let me thank Ken Krueger at Vans for his awesome efforts to help me.  We spoke at Oshkosh and he suggested I consider basically removing everything forward of the spar and reconstructing with new RV-8 side & bottom skins plus the gear towers and re-installing.  “Wow”, I thought.  That was more than I guessed I’d have to do ( just add gear towers).  But in reality it isn’t that big of a deal.  Just sounded a bit daunting.

Mainly that is because the previous owner had several people like me had mentioned they might consider changing his project from an 8A to 8, so he stopped at a good spot without adding too many more rivets than needed.  For example he had not installed the top forward skin making the tower install relatively simple for me.

Bottom line: Ken went through the drawings using my photos and sent me a good sized parts list.  What a dude!  But now that I’m into it (again watch the coming video), I see his wisdom.  Thanks Ken!

Basically here’s what needs to happen

1. I will remove & replace the forward side skins (L&R) and bottom skin.
2. I am replacing the bottom angle (L & R)
3. Bench build towers
4. Install towers
5. Install main gear/wheels
6. Install tailwheel weldment and assembly (wheel, spring tube, etc.)

Once this is finished things should move along at a good clip (again watch the videos to see where I am starting).

You see I bought an RV-8A kit partially finished and will be converting it to a more traditional RV-8.

Page in progress. Stay tuned!  No pictures yet but the fun is about to start.