More pushrod work today, but now I’m done with them.
I started by priming the outside of the W-716 pushrods. Now that these are primed, they can basically be set aside until its time to mate the wings to the fuselage. However, they’ll get stored in the wings, partially installed.
After the W-818 pushrods were assembled, I primed them with some NAPA 7220.
Next, I finished fabrication of the W-818 pushrods. These rods needed to be drilled so that the end caps could be riveted on. I decided to drill the rods, then install the caps and use the holes in the rods as guides for drilling the caps. This seemed to work fairly well. Once all the holes were drilled, I started riveting. Because of the width of the assembly, I couldn’t use my pneumatic squeezer. So, rather than trying to buck the big 4-12 rivets, I opted for using my hand squeezer. Even with the hand squeezer, I bent over several rivets (-12 is probably too long here) and had to drill them out.
The W-716 pushrod ends installed.
Once the W-818 ends were finished, I installed the rod end bearings and jam nuts, and adjusted the bearings until the push rod was the proper length. Then, I installed the pushrods in the wings. The bellcrank end was easy to install, but the aileron end was a real pain since my wings are in the cradle and I can’t easily access the top side. However, after several attempts, I finally managed to get everything installed. All the nuts are only loosely installed for now since everything will have to come apart again after the flaps are installed. I also installed the bellcrank neutral position jig in the right wing. Now, I’ll have to figure out how I want to make a jig for insuring that the ailerons are neutral.
The W-716 pushrod bearings installed.
A W-716 pushrod installed in the right wing along with the bellcrank neutral position jig.
The right wing's bellcrank, neutral position jig, and W-716 pushrod.
Attaching the W-716 pushrod to the aileron was a bit of a hassle only because of the position of the wings in the cradle.
