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Today (7/7/07) is supposed to be the luckiest day of the millennium. My favorite premonition is that Tupac is supposed to return from his death today...we shall see! Anyways, with all of this luck behind me, I should have a good RV building day right? Well yes and no. Anyways, I started out by putting the F-7101 gear attach web into place just to see how the aft end of the lower longeron sat in it. Looks good.  Next I put in the F-902 bulkhead. Checkoway recommended this to check the placement of the lower longeron against the lower flange that it sits on on the bulkhead. Seemed like a good idea, and it worked nice to keep the longeron from falling off. This bulkhead needed to be slightly fluted to get a good fit.  next I measured out where the AN3 bolts go through the lower longeron and into the WD-603 engine bracket. I drilled them with just a #30 to start things off.  I noticed that the lower longeron wasn't sitting all that flush at the front of the engine bracket. After peeling back the skin, I saw it was interfering with the auxiliary longeron.  I filed away a little of the corner of the lower longeron and the fit was much much better.  With the lower longeron sitting in place, I marked where the holes would come out on the engine mount brackets to see what my edge distance looked like. All of the holes were 1/4" from the edge. Now, if this bracket was aluminum, this would be a no go. Since its steel, I don't know. I *think* it's OK, since the aluminum would fracture way before the steel, and this joint is almost 100% in sheer. However, for something as critical as the engine mount, I think I deserve a second opinion. I put a call out for help on some of the forums with minimal responses. Either a) other people didn't notice this issue or b) they did, but don't know if its OK. I think this is worth waiting for so I will call Van's up tomorrow and bother them.  I spoke with Ken at Van's about this and he recommended getting more edge distance in the steel. He recommended trying to elongate the holes I have in the angle with a file or dremel, then using the elongated hole as the new drill pilot to work it up to a #12 hole. However, he said that it wasn't as critical for steel as it would be for the aluminum. However, the most I figure I can move the hole is 1/32", which would still leave me about 0.100" shy of the edge distance. I don't know how comfortable I feel about this shortage, and this is the ONLY time Van's hasn't told me to "build on" out of all the times I have called them.
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Last Modified: October 5, 2024 |