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Having just completed the
quick, easy final installation of my Legacy wings, I thought I'd pass on a
couple of items for fellow Legacy builders.
Fuel Supply
Hose: The AN-8 braided stainless sheath fuel hose supplied to connect
the wing tank fitting to the bulkhead elbow on the stub wing presents a couple
of problems. If you leave the wings 5" or 6" apart so you can attach and
tighten the hose before pushing the wing all the way in, look out! As you
push the wing in the final few inches, the hose has to twist a
little. This type of hose does not like to twist, however, and it will
likely kink and crimp. It's easy not to see this as you shove the wing
home. The only solution is to leave it loose enough so it can twist at one
of the fittings, then tighten it when the wing is in final
position.
Problem with that is that
there isn't any room to get at it once the wing is in place. Even if the
cutouts in the stub wing bulkhead were large enough to accommodate a wrench
(which they're not), there isn't enough clearance for the length of the 3/4" and
7/8" wrenches required to hold the elbow and tighten the -8 nut.
What I finally ended up
doing was to buy a 7/8" box wrench and cut about a 9/16" section out of it,
making it sort of an open end that would slip over the hose. I also cut
the shank off to about 4" or 5" so I'd have room to turn it. For holding
the 3/4" flats on the elbow, I also made a short-handled open-end wrench, and
ground the jaws thinner so I'd have room to get it onto the flats.
That was fun! Anyway,
check your fuel supply hoses to make sure they haven't twisted and
crimped. A snake light and a little dentist's mirror may be
helpful. (The smaller, longer fuel return hose seems not to mind being
twisted a little, so that one can be tightened down before pushing the wings all
the way together.)
Rear Wing
Bolts: These are the ones that go through the spherical bearing,
mating the two 1/4" aluminum plates on the rear spar. Getting the bolt in
is pretty easy. In order to get a washer, a castle nut, and a cotter pin
on the inside, however, will require the help of at least one
alien. You know, the ones with several long, skinny, flexible arms
with eyes on the end of each one. There's a nice fiberglass sort of arch
over the inside of the bolt, placed so that if you contort yourself
sufficiently, and somehow get a light up in there that you can burn your arms
on, you can almost see the end of the bolt. For this one, I used a
curved-jaw, 6" hemostat to get the washer hung over the bolt. This will
take several tries, and will tax your vocabulary. Save a few epithets,
however, . . . Now the nut. Well, a straight, 8" hemostat will clamp
on the grooves of the castle nut, and if you get the angle just right, you can
stick it up in there, feel around for it to seat over the end of the bolt, and,
if you're a skilled contortionist, simultaneously turn the bolt, hoping that it
will catch the first round of threads. A helper would be nice for this one
-- while you take periodic breaks to retrieve the washer that fell off, and
replace the nut that popped out of the hemostat, your helper will have time to
control his (or her) gales of hysterical laughter. Once you finally get it
started, a long, slim box wrench will get in there to hold it. Budget an
hour or two for each bolt.
Now, the cotter pin!
Well, if you remembered to mark the bolt head for the orientation of the drilled
hole before you started (forgot that, didn't you?), it's not too bad.
There's a special place you can jam your eyeball that will let you just see the
nut. Get it turned to line up with the hole it the bolt, and it's a piece
of cake. Now, I can assure you that I cut and bent that cotter pin to look
exactly like the diagram in the book -- short end turned down just so, and the
long end gracefully arcing over the top of the bolt. I never lie,
either. . . . . So bust me.
Wing Attach
Bolts: These are easy to line up. Just stick your finger
in the hole, have your helper wiggle the wing up and down, and when the slices
stop coming off the end of your finger, it's lined up. What you won't find
anywhere in the manual is that a -960 washer should go under the head of each
bolt, and probably a second one on the other side. There are those lovely
spacers that go on next, and one might think they would be made to the right
dimensions. Yeah. It's easy to get those funky-looking lock nuts
(what are they, anyway?) to feel tight on the spacer, but not have the whole
thing tight on the wing bushings. With two washers, it doesn't look to me
as if there are quite enough threads sticking out the back side of the nut, but
with only one, I wasn't satisfied that the bolts were actually tight on the
wing.
And oh, yeah, I forgot to
mention, you can't get any normal sort of wrench on the outboard one. No
room -- surprise! What worked for me was several long extensions on a 1/2"
drive socket, with a universal joint at the socket. Shouldn't cost more
that $30 or $40 bucks to get these tightened up. I also found that a piece
of 1/2" 5052 tubing slipped over the allen wrench on the inside made it
easier. You let the allen wrench jam against the spar as you tighten the
nuts, then you can just bend the tubing a bit when you're done, which will make
it easier to extract the allen wrench.
Attaching
Ailerons: (OK, I know this isn't on the same subject, but just so you
don't start thinking things will get easy when you've got the wings on . . .
) When you go to attach the aileron pushrod to the aileron, you'll find
that the bracket it connects to has been cleverly designed to foil your every
attempt. The vertical blades that the rod end goes between are short, so
that when the AN3- bolts are in place to hold the bracket to the aileron spar,
there isn't room to get a wrench on the bolt that goes through the bracket
blades and the rod end bearing. Even the smallest, thinnest 3/8" socket I
own will not go over the bolt head, because it won't clear the attaching bolt
heads. Nothing fits over the nut, either.
After much head scratching,
I came up with two different solutions. One is to remove the bracket,
countersink the mounting holes, and re-attach it with flathead 10-32 screws of
the right length. (I actually only thought of that one this morning, but
it would only solve half the problem.) The other is to use a
phillips-head, 10-32x1" screw instead of an AN3-10A bolt. With a long #2
phillips screwdriver, you can get in the open (inboard) end of the aileron to
get the screwdriver into the screw head. There still isn't room for a
wrench of any kind on the nut however, so a real kludge was in order. I
jammed a large, flat screwdriver blade between the aileron skin and the flat on
the nut, and was able to keep it from turning enough to get the screw
tight. Gee, that was fun, too!
Aileron Idler
Arms: Another fun job! For this one, you get to thread the two
little wedgie spacers on each side of the rod end bearing, up where you can't
see and can't reach. What would we do without wheel bearing grease?
For a little extra fun, the second one won't go on unless you spread the blades
of the idler arm just a bit with a screwdriver or wrench, or something.
The first one of these assemblies (bolt, spacer, rod end, spacer, washer, nut)
took me 1 hr 27 min. I guess I learned something from that, because I was
able to get the second one done in under an hour! You'll really need that
little mirror for this one, and you might want to put a smaller bulb in your
worklight so the burns on your arms heal faster.
Heads-up on
Flaps: When you put in the AN3- bolt that attaches the flap pushrod to
the inboard side of the flap, leave the little round inspection cover off so you
can make sure that at least one full thread comes through the nut plate
inside. The bolts called out in the construction manual are too short, and
mine were different one side to the other. It will probably take an
AN3-15A, -16A, or -17A, and these are not in the hardware kit, so you have to
order them. Having these bolts work part way out during flight would be
interesting, but I'll pass on experiencing it personally.
User-friendly is not a word
I'd use for any of this stuff. I wouldn't even call it bad design -- it's
more like no design at all. Like things just came out wherever, and so
what if you can't access anything for assembly, inspection, or servicing.
An hour and a half to assemble one bolt -- please!
Unless I run into any more
fun stuff like the above, I'm hoping this thing will fly pretty soon.
Jim Cameron
Legacy N121J
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