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Inquiring minds

Maxrate

Well Known Member
So I was moving the wings the other day out of storage and going through pics, and I had a long hard questioning look at the aft spar fork. The thought hit me, why Vans in his infinite wisdom puts a bolt with a castle nut through that hole instead of a fiber lock nut? I'm sure there's a good engineering reason why the main wing bolts use fiber lock nuts and the spar fork doesn't. Just had to ask.....
 
Nuts

That tiny amount of relative motion could over time loosen/unscrew/unload that bolt. Sort of like why the wheel pant axel bolt gets safety wired even though it screws into a self locking nutplate. The wheel pant bouncing up and down and rotating about the axel a little can unscrew the bolt. Most places where a bolt has rotational loads a cotter pin is used. Rudder cable attachments & engine controls are examples.

Don Broussard
RV9 Rebuild in Progress
57 Pacer
 
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I was not aware the rear fork area had that kind of movement in it. The close tolerance wing bolts must create a solid main spar so to speak from tip to tip.
 
Cleveland MC overhaul

Leaking 10-30 Master cylinder. I've sourced O-rings / repair kits, but unable to locate instructions / repair manual. I've searched Forums and Googled. Can someone point me in the right direction please. Also one poster said a special tool was required. Is that so?

Thank You, RotaVR
 
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I was not aware the rear fork area had that kind of movement in it. The close tolerance wing bolts must create a solid main spar so to speak from tip to tip.

The main spar is attached with multiple bolts so there is no relative movement.

The rear spar attach is one bolt. Therefore wing flex can cause that bolt to rotate minutely.
 
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