Today I collected the keel spar and the seat and gas tank sling to take them to their various repair places. I had located Papa’s Shoe Repair in Waconia who was willing to repair the seat and sling. Shouldn’t be very difficult, according to the old guy running the shop.
I also took the old keel spar and the new replacement tubing to Victoria Repair and instructed them to reproduce the old spar with the new tubing. I explained about the forward and aft inner sleeves and the mid over sleeve. They said it should be ready next week. I wanted both things to be done before Memorial Day week-end, but it’s my own fault I didn’t get the parts to them sooner.
But there’s a problem. For some reason, I thought I should look at the old and new tubes for the leading edge spar and by comparing the wall thickness of the two and it looks like the new tube is thicker than the old one. There is no question about it. The new tubing is thicker. That means the I.D. of that tube has to be less than the old spar. So it won’t fit over the sleeve of the forward half of the left leading edge. I can’t verify that for sure until I take it up to the airport and try it. But it comes as a unpleasant surprise. I did not take the spar to Victoria Repair, so at least I won’t waste the money to have it duplicated until I unravel this mystery.
Upon checking the Demon 175 manual, it says very clearly that the leading edge spars are .058, which is what I ordered. So by doing the calculation, according to my reference, the 1 7/8 O.D . has an I.D. of 1.759. So with the normal slack of .009, the inner sleeve should be 1.750, which jibes with the manual. So I’m confused. Maybe there isn’t a problem after all, so that’s something to be determined. I just go with the straightened spar for now and replace it later if my suspicions prove out. I need to check out the wing as soon as I can; this has gone on too long.
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