The next order of business was to figure out how to plumb the heated pitot tube into the wing.  I decided that I wanted to go with soft aluminum tubing back to the wing root.  Time to challenge my tube bending skills>  Read on.

This is my pile of sacrificial tubing.  When I mounted up my pitot tube to the wing and the cut the wing skins for the pitot tube and mast, I placed the pitot on the outboard rib adjacent to the aileron bell crank and inspection cover.  Hindsight what it is, I immediately saw that I was going to need to do some tube bending.  In case I forget to mention later, I love the bender I have below.  It is a tight radius bender that will bend up to 180 degrees in one bend.  Works GREAT.... I got it from Sears.  I have a smaller bender I will be able to use in tight spaces, but it doesn't work nearly as well as the bender below.

I ran the pitot tubing to the wing root to an AN fitting.  This is not the final fit up here, I was just checking to make sure that I didn't cut my tubing to short....  Looks dead on to me.

I modified one of the spacer washers so that it could fit flat on the root rib.  I am going to prime before I install the AN fitting permanently.

Okay, I had to come up with a way to leave the tubing in the routing hole and then get the tubing bent around to match up with the pitot.  This was the simplest bend I came up with.

Because the pitot mast is close to the inspection hole (one bay over), all I have to do is slide the pitot mast up to expose the AN fitting to connect the pitot tube.

So far so good.

Screw the pitot mast back to the reinforcement plate and everything looks great.  The tubing lines up perfectly and I didn't have to flex the tubing line in order to install the pitot.

Everything looks good and lines up.

I am pretty happy with how this looks.

I have plenty of space between the wing spar and the aileron bellcrank.  I did bend it slightly to center the tubing as close as possible.

I am happy to have this tubing routed.  I really wanted to use the more rigid aluminum tubing vs. some of the poly tubing kits I have seen out there.  I will probably use the poly tubing kits to tie the pitot system into the wing root....  Okay, what's next???  I can't wait to wrap up these small wing tasks and move onto the fuselage.

Today, I thought that I would find one of those "quick" jobs and came up with assembling the aileron bell cranks.  Well, once I found all the parts, I ran into the first problem.  The brass bushing that the AN4-32A bolt goes through had some dimensional challenges.  Van's cuts the brass bushing to the proper length (within 1/64"), however, the ID of the bushing is not large enough to run the AN4 bolt through.

I checked some other builders web sites, and at least one of them, made mention of this same issue.  The AN4 bolt has an OD of 0.250".  Definitely not the same dimension as the ID of the brass bushing.

No matter how much I wanted it to fit, it just wouldn't go.

This kind of crap, p_sses me off.  To do this correctly, and to what my wife calls my anal standards, this hole needs to be reamed out to the 1/4".  Why does Van's do that?  Their pre-punched stuff is so accurate, then the average guy has to cobble a solution to drill out a brass bushing to proper dimension.  Why not just supply a brass bushing of the proper ID dimensions? Heck, I have the tools to cut the bushing to the proper length...
However, I don't have the tooling (mill, reamers, etc) to do this correctly.  One of the builders I checked up on used a drill press and a 1/4" drill bit.  Now the trick here is to hold it such that it doesn't gouge the crap out of the outside of the bushing.

Drilling out the ID of the bushing didn't actually turn out to bad.  It didn't turn out as nice as if I had the proper reamer to take it to dimension.  However, the real  trick was to hold it during the drilling process.  I wrapped tape around the bushing to prevent the jaws of the vice grip from gouging the bushing.  This worked okay until the bushing got warm, then the tape adhesive got gooey and started slipping.

When I was done, I had some minor surface blemishes, so I chucked the bushing up in the drill press and sanded them out with a 400 grit sandpaper letting the drill press more or less do the work.

Even after my dissatisfaction with Van's on this, the aileron bell crank worked great.  Very smooth and feels really good.  No slop in the bushing at all.

I torqued the AN4-32A and AN3-6A mounting bolts in accordance with the torque tables in the Standard Aircraft Handbook as follows:

• AN4-32A:  60 in-Ibs
• AN3-6A:  30 in-Ibs

 

I somehow found a burst of energy and used it to convince Tami it was time to rivet the top skins on the left wing.  This wing has been in the stand for>>>  Humm, lets just say a LONG TIME.

I told Tami that I thought that this would only take a couple of hours.  For the most part, I didn't lie....  Once we shot a few rivets and got back into a rhythm, it did go pretty quickly.  In all, it took us about 5 hours to rivet both skins on (minus the rear spar.  Note Clecoes).

I am yet amazed how accurate the pre-punched kits are.  The fit between the leading edge and top skins is just excellent.  It is at least as good as my Cherokee.

Like I said, just excellent.  Couldn't be happier.

Only a few more rivets and the top skins are DONE.  One thing I found to be a relief is that the fuel tank Z-brackets all lined up to the spar just fine.  I have had visions that I would go to mount the fuel tank to the wing and I would have one of those Z-brackets on a 180 degrees out.  Needless to say, that was one mistake I was fortunate enough not to make.

I ran the electrical conduit before I took it out of the wing stand.  I had also seen posts of guys who had left their blue plastic on for a length of time and when the removed it, found slight corrosion under the plastic.  So I took some of mine off to see if I had any problems.  No problems, however, I do air condition and de-humidify my garage during the summer.  I plan on taking off all the plastic when I get the wings done.

Today, I decided to I could no longer delay myself from starting back up on the wings.  I have been working on things around the house and working some more of that free "salaried overtime".  Anyway, I have been reviewing my logs and looking over the wings to see where I left off on them so long ago.

I decided that I could pickup on some odds and ends that lent themselves to mindless riveting and clecoing.....
I started by riveting the aileron brackets to the rear spar.  Note the gray primer touch up job.  Well, when I left off last, I started riveting the aileron brackets to the spar when I realized that the rivet under the gray primer was actually a AN470 rivet instead of a AN426 rivet as called for by the prints.  Last time I stopped in Plattsmouth, I checked Kevin Faris's project out and check the air gap between the aileron and this bracket.  Sure enough, if the aileron didn't rub on the rivet head, it was EXTREMELY close....  I decided to drill out that rivet and install a AN426 rivet as called out in the plans.

Of course, I made the mistake on the inboard and outboard aileron brackets.

Once I got done with fixing the aileron brackets, I clecoed up the aileron gap seal and riveted it to the wing.

Next I started riveting the leading edge on the right wing to the spar.  It had been so long since I worked on the wing, I took about an hour or so and checked my rigging of the spar in the stand.  I made sure that there was no sag or twist in the spar.  Once i verified that I was good here, I proceed in clecoing the top skin to the skeleton.

I pretty much riveted the leading edge to the wing spar exactly as I did with the right wing with one exception.  I used the Cherrymax rivets to attach the wings outboard ribs to the spar.  See my right wing leading edge log entry.  Right wing leading edge entry

This went pretty fast considering that I haven't done much in the last year +...

The leading edge, now attached permanently to the wing...

I made reservations with my bucking partner to rivet the top skins on tomorrow after work.  We should be able to make quick work of that (relatively) if we get started right after work (and I don't have to put in some of that free salaried overtime I have been getting plenty of).

After I got as far as I could on implementing Van's fuel tank service bulletin, I decided that I was going to work on finishing the installation of the HID lamps.

As I did with the right wing, I placed the ballast on the outboard rib for the leading edge.  I centered, and tilted the ballast slightly to accommodate the Yazaki (Harlbera) connector (the connector that plugs into the ballast and connects the ballast to the HID igniter on the lamp).

To hold the ballast in place while I drill the holes for the nutplates, I broke out the vice grip clamps and locked it down when I was happy with my placement.

A set of transfer punches would have been nice to get the exact center of the hole, but what I did to improve the accuracy of my hole placement is found the drill bit # that just fit in the mounting hole.  I just twisted the drill bit a few times by hand and the center point of the drill bit removed enough material to more or less mark the center of the hole.

Where the center of the drill bit removed the primer, I used a spring loaded center punch to punch the location so that my drill bit wouldn't wander when I went to drill the holes for the plate nuts.

The holes are now marked and centered. 

With the nutplate holes drilled and riveted, I mounted the ballast and everything lined up great.

Routing of the wires to the HID lamp made me scratch my head a little in that I want everything to be nicely routed and look professional.  On the lower left side of the ballast, I drilled a hole and placed a bushing in it where I will pass the wires through the outboard rib.

The one problem I have with this installation is that Duckworks fabricates the wiring harnesses for you.  Well, if the ballast is in close proximity to the lamp, you have an excessive amount of wire harness to figure out what to do with.  As I did on my right wing, I shortened the harness by cutting out a center section and then re-splicing it together.  This is not my first choice of how to handle this, but I looked long and hard for the connectors for this lighting harness and couldn't find them.  I could have probably called Duckworks and bought the connectors if he makes them himself.

Anyway, I measured the length of wire I needed from the ballast to the lamp, cut the wires (offsetting each splice) and reconnected them with butt splices.  I covered the butt splices with a heavy wall shrink tube that has adhesive on the inside.  The adhesive flows while shrinking the tubing and makes a great environmental seal.  After I got the individual splices done, I ran another length of shrink tubing over the entire spliced connections.  This should be at least as good as the original jacketing of the wires.

Point to note here is that I had to run the wiring through the hole in the rib and then splice it together.  I am sure that I will be cussing when I have to replace this wiring.  Probably won't be necessary to replace while I own the airplane.

This is what the routing looks like on the inside of the rib.  I used a nutplate and a cushion clamp to immobilize the wiring slightly and keep it from rubbing / chaffing on the inside of the wing.

A power up check of the newly installed light was SAT.  I can't wait to see how much light these offer during a night flight.  The HID's appear to be extremely bright when running them and shining up the neighbors property.