Building a Javron Cub

Oshkosh

I will be in the Homebuilders Hangar, with my Cub, from 1000 to 1115 on Friday the 24th. I will be doing a presentation on Cubs, building, mods, kits, etc. using my Cub as an example (both good and bad). If you are building a Cub, or interested in building a Cub, I hope to motivate and give folks some ideas on what to do and perhaps what not to do.


Hope to see you there


Bill

Heeyaa Kung fu!!


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Good translation Steve I understand it now.....

You know you have really made it big when you get spammed - LOL



A BIG SHOUT OUT

I just have to offer Kudos to two companies.

AIRFRAMES ALASKA - It seems like every time I call these folks for help, products, or even favors(sorta) they just PRODUCE. These guys are good folks and I highly recommend them. I have been so impressed with their customer service, I can't say enough good things about them. They follow up, call you back when they say they are going to, ship promptly, etc.
Absolutely a first class operation. Thank you Sean, Israel, Jason and Gabe (and others).

Grand Rapids Tech (GRT) - Some of you know the story by now. Not one of my finer moments. I had just a SMALL clearance issue with my GRT display, so I sanded the bottom corner of the box a little. Worked great. No......I did not hit anything inside.
But, my GRT display would not boot up Tuesday morning this week. MAJOR CRISIS I wanted to go to New Holstein and I was supposed to have the Cub at Oshkosh for a Forum on Friday. I could not get ahold to anyone at GRT because they are all at Oshkosh. Argggggg.....
So I took the GRT out of my panel, jumped in MMR's PA-12 (thank you Mark) and flew up to Oshkosh to talk to GRT. Mark Allen, from GRT, hooked it up to his display power supply and............., I'm sure you know what is coming,........ it booted up and worked just fine. But Mark went the extra mile and said he would open it up and check it out. "Come back in an hour". When I came back Mark showed me some metal filings he found in the box from my little "reconfiguration exercise". He was very nice, when he would have been entirely within his rights to tell me I was an idiot and to get out of there and never come back. So we thought, perhaps, some filings might have been in the wrong place on the circuit board and perhaps compromising the circuit integrity. I took the display back home, with a very red face, feeling REALLY STUPID, put it back in my cub and sure enough it worked just fine.

Great news!! It works!! So, I left Wed morning for NH and had a great day. Did the short field landing contest; got waxed by by an exceptional young pilot by the name of Breeden, (you might have heard of him), and a few other excellent pilots, but I was happy with the Cub. (and my personal performance - I didn't hit the prop and I didn't groundloop in front of everyone). My bombardier, Mike Woodson did great as always and we tied for third in the flower bombing contest. So Wednesday was a great day. The airplane worked great and flew great.
Thursday MMR and I got up early to fly to Oshkosh for the day. The GRT would not boot up. Arggggggg....... What the heck? Tried everything. Dead. Took it out of the panel, jumped in Marks car and drove to Oshkosh - once again back to GRT. Once again Mark Allen from GRT, is super nice and helpful, he plugs it in and it works just fine. It must be my airplane. But Mark at GRT went the extra mile once again and lent me a D25 electrical plug with just two wires. A ground and a power. He says "bypass all your wiring and see if it works" Went shopping all over Oshkosh for electrical tools and parts. Back to NH. I figure I'll try it again in the airplane before I start checking wires. Boom. Works perfect. It is really hard to trouble shoot, and fix, something when it is working. Won't do any good to try the bypass test because it is working just fine without bypassing anything. So I checked what I could and I'm stumped. It is now working fine. Have I told you today that I HATE INTERMITTENT problems? I didn't sleep very well Thursday evening.

Its now Friday morning. I am supposed to fly the Cub over to the show, put it in the Homebuilders Hangar, and give a talk. Lets hope it works.
I turn on the power and sure enough - NOTHING. ITS DEAD. Its 0625 in the morning and I'm ready to become an alcoholic right there.

Argggggg......take it out of the panel again and MMR puts it in his car with the heater blasting on it just in case the early morning humidity is causing a problem and I start wiring up the bypass test. So now we use the bypass that GRT lent me and it boots up. (but I have changed two variables - used the heater, and the bypass - which one caused it to start working?) And, when I plug it back into my wiring harness it boots up this time just fine as well. So it works on my harness after it is booted on the test harness. ?????????? Have I told you today that I HATE INTERMITTENT problems. Well, its working so lets go to the show! Everything works just fine, I had a good forum at the show (at least I hope everyone thought it was good) and head home. The GRT works great and the plane is a joy to fly. I'm a happy camper. I made it to New Holstein in a Cub I built, took it to Oshkosh and had a great time. But I still have to find the problem. It is probably a bad wire or a bad crimp somewhere in my wiring. But all this just to say that GRT has been great, even when dealing with a dork like me. (Like I have said before, to those unsure if they can build a Cub, if I can do it so can you. (By-the-way.......I do not recommend you sand the corner of your electronic flight display, but if you do, at least be smart enough to clean the metal shavings out. See what you can learn from reading this thread?) But even still, it looks like that was not the problem.
Now lots of you fine folks are thinking that I should have some type of back up, or that a mechanical gage would not fail. Really?? A mechanical gage will not fail? Perhaps. But I have read threads on this fine site about all sorts of mechanical gage failures, probe failures, etc. How many Cubs have you seen with a back-up oil pressure gage? This does not appear to be a GRT problem but probably a wiring issue by the builder. That would.......... generally.............. be me.

I will let you know what I find when I find it.

It was absolutely great to see all the good folks, and friends, at Oshkosh and New Holstein. Thanks for listening.

Hope this helps

Bill

Just to follow up on this. We crimped a new pin on the end of the power lead (after Oshkosh) and have not had a problem since. I guess I had a bad crimp such that it was only working part of the time.

Bill Rusk said:

You know you have really made it big when you get spammed - LOL



A BIG SHOUT OUT

I just have to offer Kudos to two companies.

AIRFRAMES ALASKA - It seems like every time I call these folks for help, products, or even favors(sorta) they just PRODUCE. These guys are good folks and I highly recommend them. I have been so impressed with their customer service, I can't say enough good things about them. They follow up, call you back when they say they are going to, ship promptly, etc.
Absolutely a first class operation. Thank you Sean, Israel, Jason and Gabe (and others).

Hope this helps

Bill

Click to expand...

Tell Gabe the next time you talk to him that "his Dad says to treat Bill right!".

Crash

You did a great job this morning Bill. I am glad I caught your presentation.

Jake


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Crash - you should be very proud!! All my dealings with Gabe have been fantastic. He is a good man and a credit to you - his father. You did well and raised a fine young man.

Jake - I'm sorry we did not get to visit. Thank you for the kind words. I have enjoyed following your build and look forward to flying together in the future. You are up in great Cub country so I'll be heading that way. It was a bummer having to run right after the seminar. I have not yet figured out how to slow the whole Oshkosh week down. It always seems like I am trying to do too much in a short time, so I don't get to sit down and really visit in depth with everyone I would like to. Work, work, work, work,...............

Bill

That does work well. Legend builds all their aircraft with this same locking mechanism and provides the allen wrench, shortened, as a key.

MAGNESIUM SUMP

Howdy folks. Been a while since I posted. Had some other things in life I needed to tend to. I have not really had a chance to fly the Cub all that much. Gave a few rides to the neighbors and that is about all. But I'm back at it so thought I'd bring you up to speed a bit.

GRT - After we got home from Oshkosh the GRT was working fine but Buck and I re-crimped a new pin on the power wire to the GRT and it has been fine ever since. It was working before we did that, so again, I am not entirely sure that was the fix, BUT it has worked every time since with no problems.

ECI makes a magnesium sump for the 0-320 and 0-360. I managed to get one thanks to some help from Airframes Alaska. Its a long story. Airframes does not sell these sumps, you will need to talk to ECI. Outright they run about 1000 bucks, but if you get it as part of your engine kit I think the additional cost is around 500 dollars. It saves right at 7 pounds. The sump I took off my engine weighed 14.55 pounds. The magnesium sump weighed exactly 7.55 pounds for a savings of Exactly seven pounds. I am still in the process of swapping the sumps out but taking seven pounds right off the nose with something like this is great. It is not like we have gone to a radical battery that you are not sure of, or electronic ignition that some folks are not comfortable with, or things like aluminum cylinders. This is a sump. It is not structural, it does not rotate, store energy, etc. This is a no risk weight savings. Pretty darn cool.

FOLKS - Make sure your carb and intake locations match the Magnesium sump locations. There are a lot of different sump configurations. They will all bolt to the case but if you are retrofitting this new sump, and it does not match up, you could find yourself building a whole new cowling.


The old sump coming off.



The old sump in red and the magnesium sump in gray.



The new sump going on. I was at 1059 empty weight. Theoretically this would bring me to 1052 empty weight. I am going to try to do another full weight when I go to floats so it will be interesting to see what has changed.


FLOATS

I have a set of Wipline 2100A amphibious floats. I am working on the install now. One of the things I had to do first was make a spreader bar for the hoist and also get a hoist. Here is what I did and what I learned.
I purchased a 3/16 thick by 2" square 3 foot long steel tube from the local steel supply company. 14 Bucks. I purchased a Gibralter Shoulder eyebolt # 73108219 from McMaster-Carr (MSC Supply). This is for the center of the lift bar that the hoist attaches to. This eyebolt is rated at 5000 pounds with a safety factor of 5X. Then I purchased two eyebolts # 73108144 for the ends. These attach to the lift rings on the Cub Via 1/2" quick links part # 67785606.
I also got two eyebolts for the Cub # 73108144 rated at 1400 pounds each, again with a 5X safety factor.

I did a little homework on the net and I don't think you want to get a Harbor Freight Hoist. I went to a company called CM and as best as I can tell they make a good hoist (actually they have several lines/grades), and I got the Hurricane (Line/series) Hoist. Cost about 320 bucks. Then I had to make sure the rafters in the hangar would support all this so I had a civil engineer look at my hangar truss system and run some stress analysis to make sure I was not going to pull the hangar down when I lift the Cub. Then I mounted a 4X6 beam in the rafters, per the engineers recommendation, to attach the hoist to. Whew. Takes a lot of work to mount the floats, and I haven't even done anything yet.


This is all the stuff that normally goes in the Cub for the Amphib floats. Weight around 17 pounds. Electric motor drives a hydraulic pump with a reservoir, lots of limit switches, relays, check valves, pressure relief valves, and a manual back up pump system. It also includes a gear indication system with lots of micro switches and also a gear warning system as well. It is quite sophisticated and works well. But it is pretty complicated.

I tend to go for the light and simple.

So I am going to have a manual pump, valve and reservoir. And thats all. There will be no back up. If it fails (there is not much to fail) then I will have to land accordingly. If the gear fails down I will have to land on land. If it fails up I will land in water, or perhaps grass on the float bottoms. I don't see this as a big deal. Also, I can't envision a situation where I would want to raise and lower the gear more than once per flight. I don't see myself doing a touch and go on the water, then one on land, then back to the water, then back to land etc. You take off, raise the gear, go play in the water, come back, put the gear down and land. So I will manually pump the gear up and down, probably once per flight.
The back up (manual) pump that comes with the Wip float system takes about 100 strokes to raise or lower the gear. That is too many for a primary system. Fine as a back up but not for every flight.


I purchased a Parker 914 series pump. This pump is a little larger than the Wip unit and it takes 25 pumps to extend the gear and 22 to raise it.


My pump will be mounted under the front seat something like this. I will post more detail as I work this out, and weld it up, in the next day or two.



The floats basically have two hyd lines per float. One line pushes fluid behind the piston to push the piston out and extend the gear. The other line is on the front side of the piston and as the piston goes out (extends) the fluid on the front side of the piston is pushed out of the way and back into the reservoir. To raise the gear we reverse the flow of the fluid so that the fluid goes under pressure to the front side of the piston and pushes it back. This then forces the fluid behind the piston back in to the reservoir. The pump has two openings. One supplies fluid to the pump. The other is the high pressure fluid going out. The pump is a double action, meaning that it pumps out when the handle is going down and when the handle is going up. So basically we take fluid from the reservoir and push the piston, when we do so fluid is flowing back into the reservoir at the same rate it is going out.


This was my test set up. Pump, valve, and the gallon of hyd fluid acting as the reservoir. I measured the fluid going back into the reservoir and what I got was 16 oz goes into the reservoir when extending the gear (this would be the fluid that was in front of the piston)and takes 25 strokes. It dumps 19 oz into the reservoir when retracting the floats and takes 22 strokes. This means the pump is putting out about .75 oz per stroke.

I have ordered a Parker 910 series pump which should be very similar to the one above (914series) but it is supposed to put out 1 oz per stroke so this should reduce the strokes required to about 19 and 17 respectively. I think. I'll let you know.

There is absolutely no doubt when the gear is fully extended or retracted. The pump handle just instantly locks up. You can't move it either up or down. Hydraulic lock because there is fluid on both sides of the piston. Because of this you don't need a pressure gage. You could only over pressurize it if you intentionally massively FORCED it. For the same reason you don't need a relief valve. It operates at about 500 PSI but the lines, pump etc are rated at 1700 to 3000 PSI. So again you will never get there unless you force the pump. The handle takes about 15 pounds max force to move the gear and I'll bet it would take well over a hundred to move it after you hit the stop.



This is the valve I'm using Whitey 40 Series 1/8"FNPT 1 piece 4 way ball valve SS-43YF2.



This is what the plumbing looks like. The pressure goes into the valve from the pump. It is a two position valve. In one direction it pumps the gear down and allows the return fluid to go into the reservoir and in the other direction it retracts the gear and again allows the return fluid to go into the reservoir.

Hope all this makes a little sense. I'll keep posting more info as I go. I think this system is going to work well - light, reliable, and simple.

Hope this helps

Bill

Bill you going to make Greenville, or maybe the WAD?

Glenn

Bill Rusk said:

FLOATS........ Also I can't envision a situation where I would want to raise and lower the gear more than once per flight. I don't see myself doing a touch and go on the water, then one on land, then back to the water then back to land etc. You take off, raise the gear, go play in the water, come back, put the gear down and land. So I will manually pump the gear up and down.

Click to expand...

Well said Bill, This observation needs a little reinforcement. Years ago a fellow airline pilot owned a Seabee. One day he was practicing landings at the airport, then the water, then the airport, then the water etc. for a period of time. During the last landing in the water he suddenly found himself on his back. That's right, he managed to confuse himself and landed in the water with the gear down doing major damage to the Seabee. Only his pride was injured. He was fortunate. Yellowbird69 knows him (initials C.L.) as well as I. HEADS UP EVERYONE GEAR WARNING SYSTEMS DON'T WORK THE SAME AS LAND PLANES WHEN FLYING AMPHIBS.

Bill Rusk said:

I purchased a Parker 914 series pump. This pump is a little larger than the Wip unit and it takes 25 pumps to extend the gear and 22 to raise it.

This was my test set up. Pump, valve, and the gallon of hyd fluid acting as the reservoir. I measured the fluid going back into the reservoir and what I got was 16 oz goes into the reservoir when extending the gear (this would be the fluid that was in front of the piston)and takes 25 strokes. It dumps 19 oz into the reservoir when retracting the floats and takes 22 strokes. This means the pump is putting out about .75 oz per stroke.

Click to expand...

TRIVIA question. Do you know why it takes three more stokes in one direction than the other?

Bill Rusk said:

There is absolutely no doubt when the gear is fully extended or retracted. The pump handle just instantly locks up. You can't move it either up or down. Hydraulic lock ......My pump will be mounted under the front seat something like this. I will post more detail as I work this out, and weld it up, in the next day or two.

Click to expand...

Installation consideration: As you said, the handle will lock in position when pressure is up. Mounting under the seat as shown can leave the handle in a position which will interfere with your leg (unless the handle is retractable or removable). Can it be mounted on the left outboard side of the seat without interfering with the flap handle?
IF you can't find a convenient location which is out of the way, then you may need to install a relief valve (a few oz's) in order to be able to move the handle to a convenient out of the way position.

skywagon8a said:

TRIVIA question. Do you know why it takes three more stokes in one direction than the other.

Click to expand...

Hydraulic cylinders take unequal amounts of fluid for opposite direction actuation due to the presence of the cylinder rod on one side. The presence of the rod takes up space and reduces the needed volume. Another artifact of this is that cylinders of this type do not create equal force in both directions either. In critical applications where equal force is needed, a double rod cylinder is used where one of the rods can be left unconnected.

What did I win?

Jeff

You win a great big ATTABOY !

Glenn - don't know yet. Would like to. Depends on how it all comes together.

Pete - I am thinking of a removable handle with a quick convenient storage and quick disconnect, or possibly a telescoping handle.

Still working on the details.

Bill

Of course a picture is sometimes difficult to "picture" yourself actually participating in the operation. That seat/pump picture looks to me to be in a difficult position under your leg. I picture myself having to lift my right leg while pumping the handle. Very awkward. Consider a location where you can pump in a fore and aft motion. Either left side (preferred if you fly right handed) clear of the flap handle or right side perhaps mounted to the fuselage near the forward gear fitting being careful not to interfere with climbing in and out. It could be incorporated into the pivot arm of the flap handle.

The EDO amphib on a PA-18 installation used a Seabee power pack mounted to the floor ahead of the control stick. The handle pivoted fore and aft.

Just some thoughts.

Bill,

Good job on opting to go with a purely manual system. For a number of years I flew a Beaver on EDO 4580 floats on which the actuators were all manual, with a Parker hand pump as the "mule". That system worked great.

Only problem I had with it was when a hydraulic line burst just prior to touchdown......got a bit interesting for a moment. I'd consider a valve with a "neutral" position, that locks at least the side opposite a leak. Maybe not needed, but. Those 4580s had no unlocks, so loss of pressure allowed gear to extend. Do the Wips have unlocks?

I commend end you for keeping it as simple as possible, and light is good as well.

Install a a set of convex mirrors out on the struts to inspect gear position.

And prepare are for a lot of fun.

Mike

Hoist set up worked great



Still a LONG way to go but making progress


More later

Bill

Mr. Atlee was in the hanger when I was having wheel skis installed and got into the discussion of pumps.

The end of our discussion was that we mounted the hand pump on the right side, just ahead of the door. It was out of the way, easy to reach, protected from feet and such, and after the first time easy to install.

On the seat sounds good, but consider after a long day in turbs how that handle might affect you.

Of course, if all is perfect the first time, you will have nothing left to do on this bird!

Looks pretty, and I love the manual system

Nice Bill. Looks like at least a 4 degree climb angle?

Glenn

How does the thrustline modification affect flight characteristics with the float installation? It seems to me that your SC now has a different thrust angle from the original as was designed for float ops.

Thrustline changes the relationship between the wing and engine. It helps quite a bit on floats also. The power goes in the direction of the aircraft, so utilizes the thrust available.

Folks

Still working on the float install. I know a guy that just went to Wip and had them do his float install. There is probably some merit to that. This is a pretty big job, and you can't just reach behind you and pull a part off the shelf. I purchased the floats with Scout rigging. I figured some of that rigging would be common to both planes and be useable on the Cub. NOT !!


There is not ONE common part. The fittings are all different, the wires are different, the struts are different - both in width and length, the steps don't work, wire pulls are different, etc. In short - if you find a set of Wip floats from something other than a Cub you need to build in your budget a complete set of rigging. Hint - its expensive. I will also say this. Wip and Grant, (and everyone at Wip), have been outstanding. Not cheap, but excellent quality and excellent customer service. I have found some rigging parts in Alaska, Canada, fabricated some myself and ordered some from Wip. It would have been easier to just bite the bullet and order a full set up from Wip. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. But, that said, lets move on.

If you don't have one of these it is really great. Cost about 19 bucks from Home Depot. When removing the side of the boot cowl there are 35 #6 screws. This really helps.

This assembly, less the 6 bolts that hold it on, weighs 112 pounds exactly.

This assembly weighs 13.6 pounds.

You might remember from my post here http://www.supercub.org/forum/showt...g-a-Javron-Cub&p=575496&viewfull=1#post575496
I welded in a steel reinforcement for the water rudder retract cable. More on that in the next post.

But I also had Jay weld in two metal plates for the water rudder pulleys.
Shown and discussed here - http://www.supercub.org/forum/showt...g-a-Javron-Cub&p=525508&viewfull=1#post525508

In a nut shell I had the float fittings welded on the longeron, the rudder plates welded in, and a plate for the retract pulley. 5 things welded on by Jay for floats. I would say these are the standard float fitting package from Jay or probably just about any kit, or airframe builder at this point.

This is what the water rudder pulley mounts look like. I put in two AN3 nutplates 1.5 inches apart in the tabs Jay welded on. When not on floats you can put a screw in the hole to keep water out and it is much less obtrusive than the tabs that stick out from the longerons. You know, the ones you scrape your shin on when you forget they are there?

But I did not know what floats I would end up buying, and as a result that left me with a problem. How to mount the rudder balance cable!!

This is a Wip install. Looks like they found a cross tube under the fabric, slit the fabric, and mounted a single pulley off center. This does not look very attractive to me. Its aysemtrical and looks like an afterthought. But my problem is, I too, had no place to mount the balance cable pulley. The center stringer is not strong enough. So........ "Its just a series of problems to be solved"

Wip puts all their pulleys together. L to R = retract cable, balance cable, rudder cable.

I need to mount a pulley somewhere in the middle here. But nothing to mount it to AND I don't like the look. Now the cables are not together and they just don't look good. I am funny like that. I like things to be symmetrical and neat.
So I came up with the following solution..........

A paper template/pattern with some dimensions if you want to duplicate this.

Cut the pattern out of .060 4130. It is slightly offset as you will note that one ear is right on the edge (that goes outside along the longeron, the other ear extends out a little before you bend it up, so that you end up with the ears 1.5 inches apart. Thus you will have a left and right fitting. You could just make the plate 1.5 inches wide, negating a separate right and left sides.
Now bend the ears up and drill holes for AN3 (3/16) bolts 1.5 inches apart to match the eyebolt hole pattern from your currently installed rudder pulley. Drill one of the holes slightly larger to give room for things to fit up. Then drill the ears (or tabs) for 3/16 AN3 bolts.

This bracket then bolts in under the eye bolts, using the current holes and hardware. Clean, simple and sturdy - it is bolted into a steel plate you had welded in by Jay when you got your kit. (Actually I think Airframes is welding in these plates as well when you ask for float fittings). This recessed float fitting mod has become pretty common. The first person I heard about it from was Crash (Greg). Thank you Greg. I also wrote about it in my Building a Smith Cub. That post is here
http://www.supercub.org/forum/showt...ng-a-Smith-Cub&p=374212&viewfull=1#post374212

Now the water rudder balance cable pulley goes in like this.

It is a little hard to see but now the cables are close together, sorta symmetrical, there is no off-set, single pulley, where the cable looks funny, etc. A clean solution. Strong, simple, attractive. Uses mounting points that are already in place. It does add an extra pulley but it is worth it to me. I just like the way it looks and I feel good about the strength Vs trying to cobble something on to a part of the structure that can't handle the loads.

Hope this helps


Bill

Nice mod Bill. My rudder balance cable runs through the back of the rear spreader bar. (2 pullies)

At least that extra weight for the pulleys is aft where you can use it. :smile:

Bill Rusk said:

Folks

Still working on the float install. I know a guy that just went to Wip and had them do his float install. There is probably some merit to that. This is a pretty big job, and you can't just reach behind you and pull a part off the shelf. I purchased the floats with Scout rigging. I figured some of that rigging would be common to both planes and be usable on the Cub. NOT !!


There is not ONE common part. The fittings are all different, the wires are different, the struts are different - both in width and length, the steps don't work, wire pulls are different, etc. In short - if you find a set of Wip floats from something other than a Cub you need to build in your budget a complete set of rigging. Hint - its expensive. I will also say this. Wip and Grant, (and everyone at Wip), have been outstanding. Not cheap, but excellent quality and excellent customer service. I have found some rigging parts in Alaska, Canada, fabricated some myself and ordered some from Wip. It would have been easier to just bite the bullet and order a full set up from Wip. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. But, that said, lets move on.

Click to expand...

Bill, The above may be true for Wips, not necessarily so with the other float manufacturers. EDO 2000 rigging for the Scout (8GCBC) and 7GCBC are the same except for the main gear fittings. The EDO 2000 installation on my Cub is from a 7GCBC except for the main gear fittings and the rear deck fittings which I made. I also lengthened the rear strut within the new top fitting which was needed for the welded on rear fittings. There are also some wire pull length alterations. I just don't want everyone to think that the entire strut installation needs to be different with different planes.

Good point Pete. I guess I was a little surprised as I figured from a manufacturing standpoint you would want as much commonality as possible, within reasonable limits of course. It seems like a fair number of parts could be adjusted just a small amount and that would make them fit several applications. I will say though, they are good.

Bill

Scout rigging problem sounds familiar. I just finished installing wip amphibs in my smith cub. And had bought a used set with scout rigging. Guess no one wants a scout with amphibs any more. I foresee a surplus of scout rigging coming available on barnstormers....I went with the electric pump as designed. It is definitely extra weight but it is where needed. Not sure how much time you have on amphibs but they are notoriously nose heavy. I think you might end up adding weight to the tail for better performance anyways. Mine was at the extreme forward cg location. On landing I am full nose up trim when slow and stuffing it into a small space if solo. And mine isn't unique in that respect. The more aft the cg the better it will get off the water. Makes getting up on step easier and quicker. Just a thought.

Bill,

Looks great, and some very good solutions.

I see posts often say: Buy what you want, it will cost more to modify in the long run.

Same with floats.

One suggestion on your water rudder hardware: STAINLESS.

West Marine has turnbuckles that are stainless, and have a bit of a swivle


http://www.westmarine.com/buy/alexander-roberts--turnbuckle-toggle-swage--P002_065_008_008

They make them in all sizes, for all sized floats. Don't rust as bad, don't break when stepped on.