Inner wing spar

[surfly]

0176 is on her gear and I am about to start building my inner wing spar. Do any of you other builders have any suggestions or comments that you might want to share with me?
Sherm 0176

[JohnH]

Only suggestion I would make is go no further than installing the inner main spar until you have completed your forward fuselage; the glareshield, windshield, instrument panel, controls etc, you'll need the space to work in the cockpit and completed inner wings will get in the way. Good luck.

[surfly]

John,
My intent was to finish and install the spar next in order to install my seat/sling. I figured that I needed to sit inside in order to get a good feel for where to install my rudder pedals. Thanks to your suggestion I am now going to do a temporary install of the spar or fabricate a short false spar in order to accomplish the same.
Thanks again for your input. I will follow your advice as it makes much better sense.
Surfly Onex-0176

[PeterNYNJ]

I did this recently too, and like John did, found it convenient to install the inner spars through the fuselage, then finish all the work inside the cockpit (the seat pan, pedals, controls, canopy, instrument panel, etc.) before adding the ribs to complete the spar assembly. No need to remove the spar or use any temporary spar jig.

By the way, when drilling the inner spar rib, anyone know an easy way to drill & rivet the holes on the inboard rib above the landing gear without removing the gear?

Good luck, you're making quick progress!
Peter

[Klimek]

Peter,
I installed the main spar, rear spar and fitted all the ribs with clecos. After making sure everything was fitted as it should be, I marked every piece as to where it belonged and disassembled it all leaving only the spars in place. I built temp braces to hold the rear spar in place to keep it from getting bent around during the
cockpit work. The landing gear fitted and installed then removed with the fuselage on a saw horse. When cockpit work was finished, ribs reinstalled, wiring, skins were installed. There is no way of getting to the rivets above the landing gear to drill, up drill, de bur and rivet. lastly the gear was re installed.
I have 1000's of pics, just can't post here.
my e-mail , flylite@cox.net
Frank
ONEX 090
N1790T
24 hrs and counting

[PeterNYNJ]

Hi Frank,

I see, I guess using sawhorses and temporarily removing the gear is the way to do it then.
Thanks and good luck flight testing,
Peter

[Don_P]

Regarding suggestions for working on the main inboard spar, I'd strongly recommend doing just about everything you can do to the spar before it goes into the forward fuselage box. This includes all the work on the spar ends except for drilling/reaming the holes for the pivot bolts and locking pins, which has to await insertion of the outboard-wing main spars. Fit on all the ribs and spacers, the various attach angles (including those for the wing locking handle), the control stick bearings and Delrin stand-off blocks, the seat piano hinge, and the Delrin locking pin guides. Doing all this on the work table is significantly easier than doing it with the spar sitting in the fuselage. Once everything is fitted, remove the ribs plus whatever you need to from one end to facilitate sliding the spar into the fuselage. One other thing: On some of the kits (mine is no. 0095), the pre-drilled holes for the locking pins and pivot bolts were oversize. I believe Sonex has corrected this problem in later kits; however, if you have this problem and report it to Sonex, they will provide free over-sized replacement pins. (You're on your own for the over-sized bolts.) Just obtain a return-authorization number, box up the pins, and ship them back to Sonex. Note that, with the larger pins and pivot bolts, you will need different reamers than those called for in the plans.

[PeterNYNJ]

Thanks for the info Don, I have the machined spar option on Onex 0170 too and the main spar pins seem to fit well, but I might need a small shim for one to align right for the lock pin handle to go through. Updrilling to a larger pin might also fix the alignment issue, good to know that's an alternative.