21/02/2010 - Crotch strap kit and odd jobs

Crikey its been a long time since I have done anything on the RV.  Christmas has come and gone, a quick trip to Turkey, busy times at work, and the weather a little chilly.  So I though this weekend is it I'm back in the garage as its a little warmer than it was and low and behold this morning I awoke to the scene below !

Since the last time I wrote on the site, a few things have occurred. Bob and I bought a metal lathe, the garage has been carpeted for a little more comfort, and I have installed extra lights as the one end of the garage was a little dark with so much stored in it now.

Seat Belt Anchors

If you remember I had bought Crow seat belts, well it turned out the brackets that came with it, as seen in the first picture, are the wrong shape and therefore the seatbelt webbing catches on the fuselage rackets, which would not be good.  The second picture shows the optional heavier ones from Crow, which arrived around Christmas.  The keen eyed ones reading this will notice the hole size for the bolts are completely different.  The new brackets require bushing.  The lathe made this a simple job, 10mm rod with a 1/4" hole drilled through the centre and then chopped up to the right lengths so that the brackets would move freely when bolted up.

Crotch Strap

The Vans crotch strap kit is a little fiddly but as long as you clamp everything tightly and then use a close quarter angle drill, there are not too many problems.

Care needs to be taken that the bracket can rotate freely and that the webbing does not catch or rub on anything.

Then onto the second one for the right hand seat

I had only placed the wooden spaces between the wing spar brace.  So I drilled some holes and made sure the bolts could be inserted, before final drilling this section of the fuselage.

The plans mark out 4 holes that require machine countersinking so I marked these but ran out of time and warmth to c/s them today !