5.3 Hours -
Seeing how long it took me to rivet ribs in the fuel tanks, I wasn’t sure how long it would take to rivet the right leading edge ribs. The leading edge construction is almost identical to the tanks. However, none of that nasty sealant is needed.
All clecoed up, the right leading edge is ready to rivet.
I clecoed the right leading edge together, with clecos in every hole. The instructions have you rivet from the aft end forward. This is opposite the tanks, where Van’s has you start at the front and work back…not sure why this is. The two aft-most rows of rivets could be reached with a squeezer, so I squeezed those on both sides and then pulled out the rivet gun.
The top two rows of rivets could be squeezed, but the rest had to be bucked.
With the rivet gun, I worked forward, row by row, until the leading edge ribs were completely riveted. My riveting was very clean, only having to drill out and replace two rivets. Surprisingly, the whole process only took a couple of hours…I wish the tanks would have been that easy!
The right leading edge took me only a couple hours to rivet...not having to use sealant makes things go so much quicker.
Later in the day, I returned to the garage and started working on the left leading edge. The first thing I did was to pull the joint strip and finish that. As with the previous joint strip, I had to drill attach holes for the nutplates, then deburr, dimple, and prime the aluminum strip. Once the primer was dry, I riveted the nutplates in place.
Then, I moved the left leading edge from the wing to my workbench. This is where I noticed a problem. The rivet holes on the inboard rib (where the joint strip goes) were very close to the bend on the top side of the rib. This rib did not have holes in it originally. They all had to be drilled when the rib was in place on the wing along with the skin and joint strip. When drilling it, I thought the holes were ok, but on closer inspection, with the rib removed from the leading edge, it was clear that the holes were way too close to the bend and there would be no way to dimple them.
I thought this rib was ok when I drilled it, but when I took the leading edge apart, I found the holes on the top side of the rib to be too close to the bend...redo!
This is what the holes should look like...close to the center line of the flange.
Wondering if there was a way to salvage this rib, I checked Vansairforce.net to see if anyone else had this problem. As usual, I wasn’t the only one, and the overwhelming recommendation was to replace the rib since holes too close to the bend can weaken the rib. After seeing this, I went ahead and ordered a new rib from Van’s. This isn’t too bad of a mistake at just under $30 for the new rib, and drilling it should be easier the second time around since I can make a line down the middle and be able to see that line through the holes in the skin and joint strip.
Next, I decided to start working on the stall warner system. I’ve gone back and forth as to whether or not to install this. If the leading edge skin wasn’t already pre-punched, I would have left it out for sure. However, since the new kits are already punched, I figure I might as well install it rather than just filling the holes with rivets. The system is very simple. A small, metal vane sticks out the leading edge. This vane is attached to a small switch. If you approach a stall, the vane will move, triggering the switch to signal a tone generator to do its thing. The tone generator is wired directly into a headset jack, but since my plan is to install an AOA system, I’ll likely not connect the stall warner to the headset jack. However, it will be nice to have it ready incase my panel planning changes.
All I managed to accomplish on the stall warner was to finish the access panel reinforcement ring (VA-195C) that goes in the left leading edge. This was much like finishing the joint strips…I just had to deburr, prime, and rivet on some nutplates. I also enlarged a tooling hole in the left spar to accept a snap-bushing for the stall warner’s wiring.
The access reinforcement ring for the stall warner had to be deburred, dimple, and primed, before I could rivet on the nutplates.
