Hey, thanks for the support guys! Since this got moved I haven't checked on the thread, and am overwhelmed with the interest. I have been working on the old girl regularly, but it's not very interesting. I am finally to the stage that parts can start to go back onto the frame...so I decided that before the building starts, I should have all the small steel parts and nuts and bolts that are in good condition re-cadmium plated. The plating shop charges a minimum job of 100lbs. As you can guess, I have learned that 100lbs of mostly nuts and bolts is a LOT of nuts and bolts! I have to inspect them, toss any that are bent, damaged or worn, and chase the threads. Oh...yeah...the worst part is that the paint has to come off, as that fouls up the plating.
Uhgg. I long for the days behind a welder where I could see progress. I am making progress, but it doesn't show anymore.
It's funny, in that the newer urethanes come off easily. I can fill a jar with stripper and a handful of bolts, and the urethane falls right off. The zinc chromate is immune to all the strippers I have tried, though. And, zinc chromate is the main paint on all the parts! I am therefore spending many hours sitting over the bead blast cabinet, taking paint off. My days are spent removing steel parts, cleaning them in the solvent tank, and blasting them bare. Not very interesting, but necessary before I move on to the assembly.
So, here are some interesting finds I have come across:
This is one of the tail flying wire shackles...holding a flying wire to the stabilizer. The blueprint calls for 120kpsi ultimate strength alloy steel. As you can see, someone thought brazing it would be fine (about 30kpsi, or 1/4th the strength). Of interest is that it survived the crash!
This is the gearbox for the elevator trim tab. I get the impression it has not been lubed recently, since the grease came out in rocks.
This is the original engine mount, post crash. I was actually planning on rebuilding it, but:
When I cut the damaged metal off and looked closely at the mounting ring, the entire ring had been bent in ward, like a cone shape. When I looked closer, the PO had welded a couple spots where the engine had rubbed against the ring and cracked it. If you try to follow me...the engine could only have contacted the ring if the ring was previously bent, and the plane flew for a goodly amount of time to cause cracks and try to weld them. In short, the ring was coned long before the crash I am fixing. Go figure.
But, I could not think of any way to press the cone shape back out of the ring...it was junked.
Bummer.