Wings Finally On

A big milestone on any plane is getting the wings on. It'll finally look like an airplane. And it's a big step to completing it. Mine was no exception. I had a few more tasks prior. I needed to replace the power port mount between my seats for a custom one by Classic Aero to fit my carpeting in that area. Removing the old one was easy and I used MK319BS flush pulled rivets to attach the new one with excellent results. I also needed to redo the ground screw on both my fuel tank sender flanges. When I originally installed them a couple years ago the ground continuity tested good. When I retested them recently, I had spotty to nonexistent continuity. I slight twist of that particular screw, which has a star washer underneath it, regained continuity. I suspect that the original black oxide screws used had developed some slight corrosion which caused the issues. I pulled the offending screws, cleaned the area thoroughly of old Pro Seal and replaced with fresh cad screws and washers. Then resealed with Pro Seal. Continuity checked good again on both tanks and hopefully I'll have no further problems. At the last minute I decided to re-install my aileron pushrods and roll trim servo after discussing it with an Arizona RV-14 buddy. The added weight to the wings is negligible and it saves me from doing it and installing hardware while lying on my back under the wings. The two springs on the roll trim servo would've been tough. Yesterday two neighbors, Tom and Paul, graciously offered to assist me getting the wings on. Tom has built an RV-4 and RV-10 that are both award winners. Paul is an A&P. I greatly appreciated their help and experience. I had both wings adjacent the fuselage on stands I'd made. All tools, lubricants and fasteners were laid out prior to avoid wasting time. Being close tolerance bolts, I had them in my hanger freezer to hopefully shrink them slightly. Every thousands helps. Two drift pins were fabricated per plans, and I made a third one for the aft spar mount which came in handy. Being a taildragger, I raised the aft fuselage as much as I was comfortable to help the wing spars line up with the fuselage. On our first attempt we found there was interference between the two forward wing-walk supports at the leading-edge root that were contacting the fuselage prior to getting the spar holes lined up. While unexpected, it was quickly remedied by trimming of 1/8" of material at those locations. With everything lubricated we got the spars lined up and the drift pins in. Once that was accomplished it was simply a matter of pulling the bolts out of the freezer one at a time, lubing them with LPS-2 and tapping them in with a wood block. Tom commented that the frozen bolts seemed to go in much easier than the unfrozen bolts he used on his RV-10. We did the right wing first since it was the simplest. The left one has the pitot mast, OAT probe and stall warning vane plus all the wiring and tubing at the root. All told it only took us 1:45 to get both wings one. With that it was beers all around while we surveyed our work. Very satisfying to finally see the wings on. In the days ahead I'll get the nuts on and torqued. I'll need help with that too. The big bolts are AN9 equivalent that need 66-75 ft/lb of torque. I measured the drag torque on the nut with my beam torque wrench at around 8 ft/lbs so that will need to be on added too.