Wednesday, February 23, 2022

Time: 3h

• Looked at left wheel, it is wobbly compared to right wheel. The left axle is 136mm in length and thread starts at 119mm. The right axle is 137mm in length and thread starts at 116mm. This is enough that the axle nut bottoms out on the non-threaded part of the axle, thus it can not be tightened enough. Mark is going to send out some spacer material that I can cut to the proper size.
• With additional hardware I received, I was able to put in the forth bolt/nut on the brake caliper to landing gear leg. The forth nut had to be an AN364, an AN365 did not fit. I also had to grind it down slightly on one edge, as I did the washer as well.
• Unpacked firewall, studied how that will be installed.
• Cleaned holes for engine mount on fuselage side.
• Test fit firewall.
• Drilled firewall tabs and match drilled to firewall.

Photo Stream

Forth bolt in place

3 bolts the AN365 fits fine, but for the forth I needed an AN364, which I now have. Did the same for the other landing gear.

Debugging wheel wobble issue

Left wheel, you can see the problem.

Thread stops before it hits the spacer.

Other Axel

Notice the where the thread starts vs. the other measurement picture.

Sam working on re-installing another floor

We are putting the screws in by hand initially to make sure things fit well. On this floor, 5 needed a little filing in the hole to make things nice and smooth.

Test fitting the firewall

Three engine mount holes were pre-drilled in the firewall. This was enough to get things aligned very easily.

Drilling out the firewall tabs

Since some things are going to be mounted on the firewall, we decided to attach with AN3 bolts, thus drilling things out to 3/16.

Sam getting some experience drilling through steel

Building our Zenith, we had very few steel parts. Drilling steel and aluminum is a different ballgame :-)

Firewall is match drilled

Need to drill out location of engine mount and debur yet.

A live trap for the skunk(s) that made a home under our garage

If you are part of the Bearhawk Builders forum, you know my building of the plane has been interupted by the awesome smell of a skunk who decided to make his home below my garage (work shop).

Today a company came out to set up some live traps and hopefully take care of the problem for me.