Friday, November 3, 2023

Flap Controls

The flap "actuator weldment" sits behind the seat bulkhead assembly.  It has a forward facing arm that connects with the flap motor, and the rear facing arms connect with the flap pushrods themselves.  I forgot to take pictures of all of the little things that had to be done to get it to the point where it was ready to go into the plane (the picture below is still just a test fit).  The two plastic blocks on either end that bolt to the bulkhead were super tight, to the point that I was afraid the flap motor wouldn't have enough torque to move things.  I re-drilled the 1" hole through each block just to make sure it was the right size (it took off just a tiny bit more material) then took emery cloth to the weldment itself until everything fit a little better.  It's still stiff, but within reason and will probably loosen up pretty quick as the metal burnishes the plastic.  After having the weldment and those side blocks in and out about 50 times to get a good fit, I temporarily bolted the blocks in so I could place the center supporting block in position.  That block (black - hard to see in the picture) also has a 1" hole in it, then got split down the center.  Two bolts will connect the two halves and go into nutplates in the floor.  I had drill into the floors using the block as a template, then rivet nutplates to the floor.  Once all of that was done, I pulled the weldment out and put boiled linseed oil in it as corrosion protection.  I'm letting it drip dry for a day or two, then I'll re-install everything and torque the bolts down.


There are a lot of small pieces that go into mounting the flap motor.  Easy, but fiddly and took a while.  I haven't even figured out where all of the pieces go yet.  First up was a simple flap actuator plate.  The hardest part was locating the right piece of aluminum to use for it.


The flap actuator angle was next.


A piece of attach angle connects to the backrest brace (not in place yet) and ties it into the floor.  The bottom two holes were match drilled to the baggage area tunnel cover.  It'll get screwed in place with the tunnel cover so the cover is still removable.


Last up for today was another attach plate.  This one ties the front cover of the flap actuator to the top seat bulkhead.  For whatever reason, Van's didn't include any dimensions for this part, other than the laughable direction to bend an angle of 151.8 degrees into the part.  Right, I'll hit that exactly using my vice and pliers.  I have no idea why they don't even include dimensions of the part itself.  The drawing is to scale, so I guess they just figure you can measure the drawing, so why waste the ink?  With a few trips back and forth to the vice, I got a bend that was close enough.