The Barn Find Build

[Eric Page]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the info. I'll check 43.13 before I proceed. I'm a long way from needing the flaperons, so they can wait until I'm stuck waiting for parts on something else.

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I made some progress the last couple of days. I got the fuselage and vertical stabilizer stripped of fabric, and I'm glad I did. The Poly-Tack application was pretty inconsistent, so the fabric wasn't uniformly stuck to the structure. In some places it came off easily, and in others I had to pick at it with a knife blade to get an edge up that I could get ahold of.

With the tail open I can see how the ribs were done. It looks like Hysol was applied with a kitchen spatula on the end of a broom handle (it ain't pretty!), but the ribs appear to be straight and structurally sound.

Once it was stripped, I got started on removing everything. The doors came off first, then I dove into the flight control system. In all of the controls, there was ONE nut and bolt that didn't fight me. All the rest were either torqued way too tight, or had surface corrosion that made them difficult to remove, or both. I'm REALLY glad I'm taking it apart.

The rudder torque tube assembly is a mess. The pilot's left pedal and the copilot's right pedal are very tight and hard to move. It looks like the nuts holding them to the mounting brackets are too tight, so the tubes are bound up on their bushings. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any way to fix it without drilling out the rivets and separating the torque tubes. The nuts holding them in the brackets just spin their bolts and won't come loose, and the bolt heads are inside the tubes and inaccessible. At least the whole assembly is off the fuselage so I can put it on the bench.

I just need to get some cable cutters and I'll be able to finish the fuselage disassembly. The rudder pedal adjustment handles are trapped because the bolts that hold the cable ends are stuck in the handle tubes, and the cables are captive in the fuselage due to Nicopress sleeves. I have an idea how to get the bolts out using some wood blocks and the bench vise, but I've got to get them free of the fuselage first.