Tops skins are on and ready to be match drilled. Unfortunately, when placing the J-stiffeners on, it seems I messed up the drilling of those holes in an earlier step. Not sure what I did as that was a while ago. Oh well, new stiffeners on order. I’ll just match drill them in place when they get here. Similar to how the tailcone stiffeneres were done. Should work out fine.

Finished up the rear spars. Lots of rivets in the doublers. Took about one hour per wing. Luckily I was able to squeeze all the rivets except those for the aileron brackets.

Now comes the top skins.

Total for Rear Spars: 9 hours Total for Wings So Far: 152.5 hours

Really moving along this week with the extra set of hands around. The main ribs are now on the spars. Planned out the wire runs months ago and all the necessary holes have been placed in the ribs. The pieces you see sticking up and to the left are the flap brackets.

After getting the left tank to the same stage as the right, the vent lines and fuel float senders were installed.

Brad’s out here for the week for a building vacation. Things are going much quicker with a second set of hands around.

The tanks were closed up after that and are now complete. Here’s a shot of the completed tanks. Just waiting for the proseal to cure before doing a leak test.

Total for Fuel Tanks: 49 hours Total for Wings So Far: 143.5 hours

Ok, couldn’t put it off any longer. Started sealing up the tanks. First up is scuffing the contact areas to promote better ProSeal adheasion. Also, a hint from Dan Checkoway’s site is putting electrical tape where the main ribs will go before doing the stiffeners. This will prevent having to clean any overspill of proseal later when doing the ribs.

Next the stiffeners and the drain flange are riveted in place using ProSeal on all the contact areas. Also put some ProSeal on the the shop side of the rivets. All this to prevent fuel leaks. I used tank dimple dies to give more space for the ProSeal.

Next up was the fuel cap flange. Lots of ProSeal around this for leak prevention. The little clip is a retainer for the fuel vent line that will go in later.

First couple ribs in place. Lots of ProSeal on the outter edges. I need to go back and clean these up again after I get all the ribs in place. A little more ProSeal and some nasty M.E.K. to clean up the edges.

It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours just to do a couple ribs. The process takes a while. Mixing the ProSeal, applying, riveting, then the long process of cleaning up all the ProSeal on your tools and rivets.

Started the fuel tanks this weekend. Lots of stiffeners and attach brackets to trim and deburr. Took a while. All the stiffeners are clecoed and match drilled.

Got each of the tanks assembled and match drilled. The ribs are really a pain in the @&%#* to get inserted in these skins. I finally got some good advice from the mailing list to get them clecoed in BEFORE inserting the skins in the cradles. This worked better, but it was still tight.

Time to rip them all apart and deburr and dimple.

Received the DuckWorks leading edge landing light kit today. There’s a good write-up on installing them on Tim’s site. After talking with him, I’ll proabably wait to install these after the wings are further along. I didn’t order the HID bulbs and ballasts yet. Those can wait until they are needed.

Finished the right outboard leading edge. Same as the left minus the stall warning.

Fuel tanks are next? Yuk….

Total for Leading Edges: 24 hours Total for Wings So Far: 94.5 hours

Finished the left outboard leading edge. Riveting the skin went fast on this. Easy access to them all made it go a lot quicker than a few parts prior. Now to repeat the process on the right side.

After getting the left outboard edge parts all deburred, dimpled, and primed, I worked on the stall warning. I’m going to put in the Van’s stall warning to start. Later on I will probably try the AFS Angle of Attack.

First up was the access hole which has to be cut out of the bottom of the left leading edge. Little nerve racking the first time cutting a big chunck of aluminum out of your wings!

Then the nutplates are added to the backing plate after dimpling and priming. Pretty good fit, but still have some fine filing to do for a perfect fit.

Then on to assembling the microswitch and vane that make the stall warning. Not much to this, just the switch, a few screws, a few washers, a few nuts, and the stall vane.

After the hole is enlarged in the leading edge, the stall switch is attached to the rib with a couple of nutplates and screws.

Here’s what it looks like installed in the leading edge. I still need to adjust the position a little, but I’ll wait for that later.

Time to start riveting this edge together.