13 August 2015

Fuselage: Cowl hinges. Length uncertainties.

An updated revision of the plans, Rev. 1, which was released on 5-May-15 by Van's, changed both the length of the hinge and the location of eyelets on FF-00006-L/R.  Below shows Rev. 0 on the left and Rev. 1 on the right.


The hinge fits in the location illustrated below.


I originally cut the hinge according to Rev. 0.  However, I was concerned that the location of the eyelets specified in Rev. 1 was critical.  So I bought new hinge (when I happened to be in Oregon last month and stopped by Van's for an over-the-counter purchase) and match drilled it to my original hinge (since I had already dimpled the firewall flange).

Upon sealing the firewall flange and riveting the shorter Rev. 1 hinge to the firewall and shim, I noticed that the hinge was too short to cover the entire length of the shim.  In fact, it was short by exactly one hole.  I decided to drill out my Rev. 1 hinge and replace it with the longer Rev. 0 hinge (which exactly matches the length of the F-14134B-L/R cowl hinge shim) plus, I removed an additional eyelet according to a recent post on VAF.

Here is a direct comparison of the Rev. 0 and 1 hinges relative to the shim.  Again, I removed an additional eyelet on the Rev. 0 hinge.  This is the one (white hinge below, now erroneously labeled "scrap") installed on my aircraft now.


The right side now looks like this.


In retrospect, looking at Section 35, Upper Forward Fuselage, I could have just lengthened the upper hinges by one hole as those hinges too have shims.  Oh well.


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