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Europa #435 G-RODO Build Journal - 2022 07

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9 Scribe a line on tang along top edge of pushrod. This will indicate where the bottom edge of the spacers should be. Remove the tang from the lock. Spend some time looking for the other starboard hook plate, before finding it fallen down by the sight tube. Transfer the scribed line from the lock tang to the outboard hook plate. Try clamping the hook plate in the milling vise to see how easy it is to get the scribed line parallel to the jaws. 3633.2
12 Re-clamp hook plate in milling vise with scribed line along top edge of front jaw. Scribe plate across rear jaw to transfer line to opposite face of plate. Reverse the hook plate in the vise with the scribed line a few mm above the front jaw and parallel to it. With the 16mm end mill, machine the front face (ie the face that will be outboard when installed) of the hook plate back by about 1.5mm down to just beyond the scribed line to leave 1.5mm thickness on the portion that will be clamped to the tang. Remove hook plate from vise and try fit on lock tang - not right at all! The line I had scribed was for spacer clearance from the pushrod, not for the edge of the tang, and makes no sense on the hook plate. Maybe the time spent searching for the missing hook plate during the last session took my attention off the real reason for scribing that line on the lock tang.

Fit the tang to the hook plate with screws inserted for alignment and scribe a new line along the edge of the tang. Of course this is on the "wrong" side of the hook plate so transfer it to the other face using the same method as above. Repeat the milling operation to remove the rest of the waste. Try fit on tang and it is now fine.

Now need spacer(s) totalling 7.5mm thick. Find some aluminium offcuts 5mm & 2.5mm thick. Place each against the milled portion of the hook plate and scribe around the edge to create the outline required for the spacers, and also scribe through the hole outlines. Having done that, recall that the spacers need to be smaller than that (as demonstrated by the milling error above!) so stop and think before doing anything more.		 3634.1
14 Realising last session's error, re-mark the 5mm & 2.5mm aluminium plate offcuts with their edges aligned to the scribed line on the hook plate for the top edge of the pushrod, not the edge of the lock tang. Hacksaw and file the marked pieces to shape. Centre-pop the hole locations, centre-drill and drill through 3mm.

Test assemble the stack of tang, hook plates and spacers. It's too tight to fit the milled section of the port pushrod (starboard one is still in the door). Need to use 3mm plate instead of 2.5mm for the spacer. Fish out one of the faulty OR5 parts which is 3mm thick. Mark a spacer outline and holes on it, leaving slightly more meat below the holes, as the drill was tending to break out of the bottom edge of the previous 2.5mm spacer. Hacksaw, file, drill holes as before. Deburr and assemble to tang and hook plates. Now the assembly clears the milled section of the port pushrod nicely.

Turn the lock to the unlocked position and move the shoot-bolt to the closed position. Offer up the hook assembly to the lock barrel and hold in place while turning key - looks good. Remove the assembly and dismantle. Degrease in acetone and re-assemble with Loctite 243 on screw threads. Position on lock barrel and fit circlip. Try turning key - the hooks fit OK once actually on the pushrod but are reluctant to engage on first contact - obviously some slight misalignment. Remove hook assembly and file tapers on inside faces of leading edges of hooks to ease entry of pushrod between the hooks. Re-fit to lock barrel (discover that it's easier to fit the circlip with the door closed than working over my head with it open) and now the assembly turns without problems.

Mark the pushrod for the roll pin hole with a fine felt-tip pen. Remove pushrod, centre-pop and drill through 2mm. Open to 3mm. Tap in a 3mm x 12mm roll pin. Re-insert pushrod and try lock operation. At first can't turn key far enough to extract it, but then I find if I lock it with a firm fast movement the key will come out. However, the barrel is not actually locked in this state and the hook assembly can be pushed back. Test again with the pushrod removed - the lock is perfectly secure in the locked position, so looks like the internal corner of the hooks will have to be filed a bit more to let the barrel come to its fully locked position.		 3636.5
16 Remove circlip and hook plate assembly. File a little way into the internal corner of both hook plates with a small round file and remove burrs. Re-fit to lock barrel with circlip and try action. Now seems OK, and the lock resists retraction of shoot bolt (although because of the lever geometry the handle can be moved slightly).

With the intention of making the fixings neatly spaced at 120 degrees apart, sketch the access hole and radial lines at 120 degrees using CADintosh and print on OHP film. Laying it over the access hole shows that such spacing will not be possible. Because the inboard hook plate is very close to the inside door skin, the anchor nuts have to be completely clear of the sweep of the hook plate. Thus most of the upper semi-circumference is out of bounds, unless the cover plate were to be made much larger in that direction. Decide that the pre-preg offcut I had pulled out for making the cover plates is a bit flimsy, so choose another slightly stiffer piece which should be OK with fixing not equally spaced. Mark the best hole positions that are possible on the door skin, then transfer to the OHP film with the true outline of the hole. Mark a suitable circle on the film and cut to that line. Cut the pre-preg to that circle and gently centre-pop the hole positions through the film. Drill and open to 4mm. Position the cover over the hole and drill through the holes into the door inner skin, using M4 screws for alignment after the first hole made.

Position (with some false starts) a M4 x 8mm screw inside the door skin through one of the hole and spin an anchor nut onto it outside the skin. Holding the anchor nut in place, drill 2.5mm for a rivet. Insert a rivet in that hole and drill for 2nd rivet. Remove anchor nut and screw. Countersink holes with a handheld 5.9mm drill bit. Place anchor nut inside skin and retain it with a M4 x 8mm screw with a spacer nut fitted, to avoid going into stiff part of nut. Position rivets and tighten screw. Pull rivets using usual spacer on rivet gun nose to clear screw head.

Repeat whole above process for the other 2 holes. Check fit of cover with 3-off M4 x 8mm button-head screws (2.5mm hex key) - looks OK.		 3639.0
18 Mark on inside of fuselage with felt-tip pen the edges of the first bracket on the fuel filler cover. Abrade and degrease that area and the bracket. Mix a small batch of 5-minute Araldite and apply to both bonding surfaces. Place cover in position and prop there with a strut braced against a cushion in the opposite baggage well. Leave to cure.

Order some more TAPK33BS rivets from LAS Aerospace.

Later in the evening remove the strut to avoid permanent dent in the cover.		 3639.5
19 Check how closely the fuel filler cover follows the contour of the fuselage at the position of the next bracket (aft side, lower corner). Slight gap towards corner but good fit further away. Undo temporary short screw holding cover to first bracket. Attach an angle bracket to the cover at the proposed location with double-sided sticky tape. Try for fit and check with strong light if the foot of the bracket is sitting well against the fuselage. Remove and adjust, re-check until satisfied. Clamp bracket to cover in that position and drill centrally 2mm. Open to 4.7mm. Remove bracket and sticky tape (quite hard work even with acetone). Fit anchor nut to bracket with short screw, drill rivet holes and countersink. Insert and pull rivets to secure bracket. Attach bracket to cover with short temporary screw and offer up cover again to check fit of bracket against fuselage - looks fine. 3640.3
20 TAPK33BS rivets delivered from LAS Aerospace.

Abrade bonding areas on aft lower bracket and fuselage side and degrease with acetone. Mix a batch of 5-minute Araldite and add a small amount of flox to thicken it. apply to both bonding surfaces. Offer up cover and retain with screw in forward lower bracket. Press lower aft corner against fuselage with prop against cushion in opposite baggage well. Check with a strong light that epoxy is being squeezed out of the joint.		 3640.7
21 Remove prop and screws holding cover. Check the position for the 3rd and last bracket (aft side upper). Hold bracket in place on cover with masking tape this time (much easier to remove than the double-sided!). When satisfied with the placing, clamp in position and drill for screw; first 2mm then 4.7mm. Unclamp, remove tape and bracket. Fit anchor nut with usual short screw and drill bracket 2.4mm for rivets. Countersink with 5.9mm drill bit handheld. Fit and pull rivets. Fix bracket to cover. Fit cover to fuselage with screws in other 2 brackets and mark the fuselage side for the location of the last bracket. 3641.1
23 Abrade and degrease bonding areas for 3rd and last fuel filler cover bracket. Mix a small batch of Evo-Stik 2-hour Control epoxy and add some flox to thicken. Apply to both bonding areas. Offer up cover and secure with temporary screws in forward and aft lower positions. Insert prop between top aft corner of cover and cushion in opposite baggage well to keep bracket in good contact with fuselage while epoxy cures. 3641.4
26 Remove prop against fuel filler cover. Undo the temporary screws and remove the cover to check the last bracket bonding. All looks good. Can't find any SS button-head 10-32 screws in 3/8" length - the 1/2" ones are a bit too long. Check that there is room from the edge of the cover to fit M5 SS penny washers (MF-PW05S) - no problem.

Order some SS button-head 10-32 x 3/8" screws from Westfield Fasteners.		 3641.7
28 tick10-32 x 3/8" screws delivered from Westfield Fasteners.

Review the M5 penny washers I had intended to fit (19.6mm OD, 1.5mm thick) and decide that slightly smaller ones (14.7mm OD, 1.7mm thick) would do just as well. Grease some of the screws and fit the cover with them. However, with the extra thickness of the washer, the ends of the screws are barely appearing out the back end of the anchor nuts. Switch to 1/2" screws instead, and fit them with the washers. Find that the best order for fitting the screws is aft lower, aft upper, forward lower - otherwise the holes don't quite line up, possibly because of slight distortion when the cover was propped rather firmly in place while the brackets bonded.		 3642.1
29 Collate and print out all the info on the flap hinge assembly.

Open trailer and pull out trolley and engine box full of blue foam to get access to the rest of the trailer. Take out port inboard flap hanger from the rack of painted parts. Look for the polyethylene bags of flap fasteners but they are not on the trolley where I expected to find them. Search all the boxes on the trolley to be sure. I must have brought them into the garage and left them somewhere REALLY safe! Have a quick but fruitless search in the garage for the flap hinge fasteners.

Consider that while the trailer is open I could at least attach the tabs to the tailplanes but can't readily locate the reference to the correct fixings (AN525-10R8 screws and MS21042-3 stiffnuts). So, button up the trailer and give up for the night.

Search the journal for references to moving flap and outrigger hardware away from the trailer but without success.		 3642.6
30 Find the 4 polyethylene bags with the flap and outrigger hardware in the garage; pleased to recover them but sad that I can't recall why they were moved from the trailer, and that my poor record-keeping made it hard to discover their location!
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