STI Farm Fox Build Log

[Delta Whisky]

Harlan - they look correct to me. BTW - If I remember correctly, I ended up epoxying one or two fender washers under the front panels in order to maintain a flat plane for the rudder pedals mounts. Also (more is coming back to me now), I purchased the prefab kit that included the mounting brackets for the brake pedals. If you did the same, I recommend that you verify the rudder mounting hardware against the templates that came in your manual. One of mine was manufactured incorrectly and caused a bit of an issue when drilling for one of the pedal brackets.

[Kitfox Pilot]

At what point did you varnish the floor? Did you wait till all the holes were drilled for the rudder pedals also?

[Delta Whisky]

I waited. Mostly because I like to seal the inside of the holes. I'm not sure it makes a huge difference.

[Kitfox Pilot]

Question about floor attach point gaps. What did you do with these? Probably 3/16 gaps on 4 of them. Did you glue washers on or bend tabs up? I thought at first it must be welds but the wood sets down good on the pipe when pressed down.

[jiott]

I did a combination of two things: I bent some of the tabs up as far as possible and still keeping them relatively flat; then I threw away the self-tapping screws and got some similar size machine screws and some Tinnerman clip-on nuts to go on the tabs. No worries about stripped threads and the tinnerman nuts acted as a thin washer to take up some of the excess space.

[Kitfox Pilot]

I think that would be a better way to screw it down. Thanks

[airlina]

Harlan, I found that over time and after many condition inspections, using self tapping screws into those metal tabs is a losing proposition, as they always strip after repeated use. Take the time now to either do as Jim mentions in his post or install nutserts (thats what I ended up doing eventually) or rivnuts and use machine screws (AN 526) to save you the aggravation down the road. There are several areas during the build that this can be accomplished. Bruce N199CL

[jrevens]

I used nutserts (Tric-Nuts) also, and glued plywood spacers to the bottom of the floorboards. You can get nice plywood in various thicknesses at a hobby store.

[jiott]

I also used Tinnerman nuts on the weld tabs back at the tail access covers.

[PapuaPilot]

I started with AN3 bolts and self locking nuts and they were a pain to install when you were reaching down there blind. After a couple times of removing them I put Tinnerman nuts on the tabs and continued using the AN3 bolts, which are much easier to remove than the AN525 screws. FYI I don't remove the cargo floor for inspections, I just collapse the baggage sack on top of it.

Last year I added 4 D rings and a cargo net (Amazon). I put the D rings on the floor with these bolts.