Eddie's Mini Rebuild

Dakota Cubs here I come.

Lefoy84 said:

How do folks get the floorboards under the seat out on a covered plane?

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Cut the fabric. It sucks. Bad. I did it to mine to replace the floorboards that were broken. If they aren't broken I wouldn't mess with it.

RaisedByWolves said:

Cut the fabric. It sucks. Bad. I did it to mine to replace the floorboards that were broken. If they aren't broken I wouldn't mess with it.

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How about drilling out the bolts and going back with nutplates and tinnerman nuts?

What did the carbon fiber cost you?

Steve Pierce said:

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Where did the big wear plates come from?

Lefoy84 said:

How about drilling out the bolts and going back with nutplates and tinnerman nuts?

What did the carbon fiber cost you?

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There is u shaped brackets that hold the rudder pedals in and there are shims I cut an
I shape in the belly and was able to get in there but it sucked. When I patched it I had to put a bigger patch over everything and shrink it down.

Lefoy84 said:

Where did the big wear plates come from?

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Handmade.

Lefoy84 said:

Already bought the wire. At this stage, it is too much work to change it. That also would give me about 10 feet of heavy ga unfused wire that is hot with the master on.
My setup will use a 30 amp breaker in the feed line. It wiil be about three inches from the master solenoid. A short in it trips the breaker.

A short in your setup fries till you turn off the master unless I am missing something.

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All right. Since 'some people' won't pick up a phone, I'm reduced to scribling on paper in an attempt to impart some knowledge. I've attempted to attach a pic with two diagrams. The top is the stock SuperCub system. The red lines represent the heavy cable from the start solenoid/battery location, through the firewall, to the starter. The blue lines are the control circuit for the start solenoid. The green lines represent the bus power circuit, from the two glass fuses, to the three position master switch, to the bus The big downfall of this system is that the bus power lines are ALWAYS hot from the battery to the master switch. That's why they have those leads fused.

To make this a 'real' bus power system, look at the lower drawing. Replace the original start solenoid with a master solenoid. Move up to the firewall and cut the heavy starter cable, install ring terminals and the ends to a new start solenoid. Using the original control wire for the start solenoid (the blue wire from the top drawing), connect one end to the new master solenoid and the other to a new master switch (the brown wires from the lower drawing). Your master solenoid now works and you didn't install much new wire. Now, using the original start button and fuse, run a wire to your new start solenoid at the firewall. At the same time install a new bus feed wire from the 'upstream' terminal on the start solenoid (the large terminal that's always hot when the master is on), to the bus bar.

The only thing left to do is drag out the bus feed wires (green from top drawing), the fuse block by the battery, and the original master switch.

This way allows you to reuse some of the existing wiring, if they are in good shape, and bring your electrical system up to modern standards.

One other note; NEVER fuse a bus power feed. These are always the heaviest wires and are controlled with the master switch & solenoid in emergencies. Remember that the only reason the originals were fused is that the could not be turned 'off'.

Thanks Web,

My intentions were good!

What would you officers do without an NCO to watch out for you? lol

Web

One glitch I noticed today. The stainless firewall from clyde was ordered with a flange riveted on to attach the boot cowl to. The problem is that the flange is at 90 degrees but the cowl does not meet at 90 degrees. This leaves a gap between the flange and the cowl. If the screws are tightened down, the cowl will deform.

What about segmented cuts in the flange and subtle massaging to lay flat with boot cowl?

My best advice: DO IT NOW!!!

everything is easy with a bare frame... once it is covered you are doomed to leave it alone for years.

So if it is irritating, change it now.

Put a metal belly on if you want to pull floor boards out often.

Carbon fiber floor is a great thing. Do paint the tube well, and then tape over the tubes to further separate the CF from the tubes to prevent corrosion.

One more thought: take it to pierces seminar. It will fit well in a 24' uhaul:lol:

Lefoy84 said:

One glitch I noticed today. The stainless firewall from clyde was ordered with a flange riveted on to attach the boot cowl to. The problem is that the flange is at 90 degrees but the cowl does not meet at 90 degrees. This leaves a gap between the flange and the cowl. If the screws are tightened down, the cowl will deform.

What about segmented cuts in the flange and subtle massaging to lay flat with boot cowl?

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Before I would cut it, I would use a metal strether on the flange until it opened to the angle you need. A good body man could do it with a hammer and dolly. I'm sure Pierce could fix it to fit. jrh

I'm particularly interested in how to fix the cowl/firewall flange gap. I think that if you use a stretcher/shrinker on the flange the result will be an unwanted curve in the flange thus distorting the firewall itself. As I perceive the problem, you need the flange to have an angle greater than 90°… like 100* or 105*. I'm not sure how to approach the problem but don't think altering the existing flange, especially when attached to the firewall, is a solution. I haven't looked at the firewall flange drawing, but the flange is 90* for a reason. The misalignment may indicate a problem somewhere other than at the flange.

I'm quite interested in how this is resolved and hope you post some photographs of the solution.

The flange is stainless steel. I am not sure that I have the skill or tools to stretch it.

Mr Piper didnt use a flange. Maybe this is why.

The 24 foot U Haul idea has crossed my mind.

The flange is 3003 aluminum. It has always formed itself when I installed either nut plates and screws or rivets. The one that gave me fits was the titanium firewall from Atlee Dodge. I ended up cutting that flange off and riveting one of Clyde's on.

I have one of Clyde's flanges if anyone needs one new in the box I would like to sell it don't work for a wide body.

Steve Pierce said:

The flange is 3003 aluminum. It has always formed itself when I installed either nut plates and screws or rivets. The one that gave me fits was the titanium firewall from Atlee Dodge. I ended up cutting that flange off and riveting one of Clyde's on.

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Guess I will find out tomorrow when I screw it down for the first time.

Here is the flange at 90 degrees. Note the gap. The actual angle is 113 degrees.


It puts a bow in the bottom panel. This is before the stiffener is added.


The good news is that the 3003 aluminum flange is easy to bend/stretch if you go slowly.


After massaging


After stiffener is added


Tools I used


Turned out to be fairly easy to fix

A little fine trimming and the edge rolled and boot cowl is almost done. I have to decide if the cowl vent goes back. I probably will.

Looking good Eddie.

Well, that worked out pretty good. Thank you for the photographs, and I'm glad that problem's about solved.

Excellent write up. Very informative and good pictures. Thank you.

Bill

One thing that I have learned is that working on a 54 year old Cub is much more difficult than building one with new materials. Nothing is straight. Everything is dirty.

I had to clean and straighten every one of the c channels. You cant use the existing screw holes to do nutplates because none of them are centered in the channel. How nice it would have been to be working with new, straight stuff.

Maybe when I build my experimental.

Lefoy84 said:

One thing that I have learned is that working on a 54 year old Cub is much more difficult than building one with new materials. Nothing is straight. Everything is dirty.

I had to clean and straighten every one of the c channels. You cant use the existing screw holes to do nutplates because none of them are centered in the channel. How nice it would have been to be working with new, straight stuff.

Maybe when I build my experimental.

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It'd be a trade-off. I wish I had an old dirty '54 cub sitting here next to the new one I'm building so that I could use it as a reference.

Lefoy84 said:

One thing that I have learned is that working on a 54 year old Cub is much more difficult than building one with new materials. Nothing is straight. Everything is dirty.

I had to clean and straighten every one of the c channels. You cant use the existing screw holes to do nutplates because none of them are centered in the channel. How nice it would have been to be working with new, straight stuff.

Maybe when I build my experimental.

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A bigger hole won't hurt the nut plate. You have to egg it out to the middle, but you will be happy you do that. So you don't have ten size screws that keep falling out.

RaisedByWolves said:

A bigger hole won't hurt the nut plate. You have to egg it out to the middle, but you will be happy you do that. So you don't have ten size screws that keep falling out.

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I adapted and overcame!

Lesson learned for the day.

Massage, stretch, shrink the firewall flange before you mate the sheet metal and drill holes.

I used a straight edge from the flange to the rear of the cowl to get the flange right. I dont have a stretcher so it takes awhile.

The moving of the metal affects the relationship of the nutplates and can throw things off.

You're never to old to learn geometry.

Web

I like the modified vice grips.

Most hardware stores have pliers that look close, and that are designed to bend sheet metal. They work great on this type of stuff.

Anyone know where I can get some of the channel for cowl support brackets. Dont want the finished items. I want to make my own.

One is 3/4 x 5/8. and the other is 1 x 5/8.