Hi Alan,
It's a pity you were not available when we were working on the design and m
anufacturing process all those years ago, we could have done with an expert
to help. Sorting out all of the thousands of items with your help would ha
ve been welcome.
Everything could have been made bullet proof, trouble is the Europa would h
ave weighed perhaps 1200 + pounds, with little payload ?
A number of options are available to you.
1]. Submit your new [improved] design to L.A.A. you might get it through in
a year or two ?
2]. Call Karen at Europa, have your Credit Card ready, and order one of the
new [ improved] torque tube assemblies. With hindsight, and less pressure
18 years on, Europa have done a re design on this. Back then, we didn't tak
e into account that builders would take it apart / reasemble / take apart /
reasemble it the wrong way round / take apart / reassemble and wear the ho
les .......... or they would smack the mass balance weights onto the stop..
... If you take this option, you might have to ream out the bores of the TP
5 /TP6 sleeves in your tailplanes to allow the torque tube to slide on eas
ily, as they were matched to each individual torque tube. Easy but time con
suming, with a broom handle and emery cloth.
Almost certainly you will need to sweat out the TP13 bushes [ the four 1/4'
' bore drive bushes in the inboard rib] and re pot them to match the drive
pins, simple job with a heat gun and 1/4'' bolt, and some epoxy. This heavy
duty item is, funnily enough, heavier.
3]. Remove the entire torque tube assembly, mark everything as to their ori
entation [ horn , drive plates and nylon spacers relative to the torque tub
e] and establish the scale of the wear [in the holes, not the pins]. If the
pins are the original 1/4'', and the holes are not too worn [ they might b
e now if you have been swinging on the tail to check wear] the next size up
was 5/16''. Not sure if these are available from Europa, as they go direct
ly to 10mm now, bigger is better, but doesn't give you another shot at it i
f you mess up on reassembly. The new holes in the tube / fiting need to be
an interference fit, as in if you can push the pin in by hand, the jobs bu
ggered before you fit them. I have just done this job last week to a monowh
eel with 800+ hours on it. very slight play but as it was in my workshop it
made sense to sort it for another 800 hours life.
Get a machine shop to ream the holes out to 0.007'' smaller than the pins A
CTUALLY MEASURE, and make sure you don't lose the relative positions of th
e fittings when this is being done. If there is significant play between th
e drive plates, ensure they are clocked to be in allignment with each other
during the drilling process. DON'T trial fit the pins ! It is a once ony j
ob ! On reinstallation, to drive the pins in you will need a 4lb copper ham
mer.With the nip of the tube on the pin, it will need a firm wallop to driv
e the pins in, should be a '' doink, doink, doink, donk '' Mark with a felt
pen on the head of the pins the axis of the split pin hole so you can have
them vertical when you insert them, it helps to taper the lead end of the
pin back to the split pin hole to assist insertion, and lube the pin with t
hin oil.
Depending on whether the original builder put the inspection / view panels
in the place described in the Build Manual, or chose to delete / move them,
this is either a 3 hour each way job + the machining work, or a couple of
days marathon swearing session.
This work will need inspecting, and entering in the aircrafts Log Book.
Regards,
Nev.
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Carter <alancarteresq@onetel.net>
Sent: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:54
Subject: Europa-List: Re: Mod 73
Hi Brian.
o me it feels like play, i will check again, and slide the Stablators off a
nd
heck inserts making sure they are bonded.
am just a pilot but i could have done a better job in designing this linka
ge.
s this has the possibility of grounding the aircraft for some considerable
ime, due to the fact that clamps are individually made to size, Why has,
t
omething not been done about it.??
hy can,t you get a complete unit with clamps already made, so the job could
be
one in one go, say a day, not grounded for 2 months.
Alan
ead this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=385078#385078
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