7AC Restoration

[Kif]

Cleaning and painting some wing parts.

Aileron sector before and after.

[brink]

hey Keith:
Looks like a Champ to me! I was looking at your last Photo and I noticed something I have seen often on Champs and wondered why that Throttle linkage corroded and dis colored so bad ,I had to buy one from Wag-Aero, The Fuel linkage that is in the same area is usually Okay and rust free. My project was the same way, and I have seen several others, hangered or not, I use to think the window sill leaked, water from the rain, A flight instructor told me that a plane used as a Trainer was the problem, My question is, Was your aircraft used in a school or as a trainer ?I was in the Service on Okinawa, and flew the Champs at the Kadena Aero Club, On Yomitonson strip. Lots of touch and goes, I also got introduced to Aircraft Maintenance, in the civilian world. We didn't do annuals, we did service checks, and in the checks we often cleaned that Throttle rod and re cromated it, put it in an old fridge with a lite bulb and baked it on. overnite. I still do that today. Good luck with those girls, Enjoy the rebuild A fellow Flyer Sunny

[Kif]

Brink. I think that the last time this champ flew was in 82'-83 so it sat for a while. The only time that I know that it was used for training was when it was new (Byerly Aviation Peoria Airport). There was a lot of surface rust on alot of things but everything is cleaning up really nice and is getting either primed or epoxy painted. Should last a while. Thanks for checking it out.

[Kif]

Drove to Wicks and got spar blanks and plywood to start making new spars for one wing. Thanks to Tim's and Nathan's posts I feel that I can do this alot easier and with more confidence.


Got them cut for width with the bevels and the attach fittings plywood glued.


Here's some pictures of the old spars. For being original these are in really nice shape.

[Kif]

Got the ends cut and cleaned.



Glued on the strut fitting plywood.


Made hole jigs like Tim's.

[Kif]

Everything matched up nice after drilling.









Got the spars back home and put on the first coat of varnish.

[Flynlow]

I'm really impressed with the way you... oh, look at all the pretty girls! Now what was I saying?

[quote="Kif"]Everything matched up nice after drilling.


quote]

[Kif]

Jack, I took those pics just to add alittle something different to the post. Figured you've seen one wing attach point you've seen them all.

[Flynlow]

LOL, works for me!

Jack, I took those pics just to add alittle something different to the post. Figured you've seen one wing attach point you've seen them all.

[Kif]

Drilled the drag wire holes today. Thanks alot to Nathan for sending the jig and to David J. for letting me use it. It worked great. I got two coats of varnish on. I'll cut the tips. Sand and put two more coats of varnish then start assembly.

[Kif]

I can breath again. Got the tips cut today. Thanks alot Tim for your post. I probably looked at it 50 times myself. It sure helped.




You can see that the original aft spars were just a little off on the bottom angled cut compared to the drawings. But that was just about it. Everything else was right on
.



The original front spar tips were right on with the drawings. The new ones turned out nice.




I'm going to trim the tips when I fit the tip bow on. Also going to drill the holes for the diagnal tubes after everything is trammeled and put together. Figured that in case they were off alittle then there could be some unwanted stress on the spars. Any thoughts on this?

[Kif]

I made this out of plastic pans, tape and plastic to clean the ribs.




Got the last coat of varnish on and the compression struts on just to hold the spars for now.

[Kif]

Alodined the ribs after cleaning and etching.



Drying all the ribs.



Sliding on the ribs and starting assembly.

[Kif]

Here's some more pictures of assembly.











Here's a before and after.

[james gevay]

WOW, the difference is night and day, excellent workmanship!