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Replace those old weldments

This airframes had approx. 400hrs TT. The longerons looked good as did the skins. At least the builder didn't drill a bunch of "extra" holes like I've seen in other posts. Now the weldments themselves had some holes that do not have corresponding holes in the plane. I can't figure that one out, unless he drilled the weldments first and decided not to match drill them.
The SS firewall has a crack in the lower rt corner beside the engine mount bolt hole, but I don't think it's structural. I could be wrong, but it appears to be only cosmetic. I really don't want to have to change out a firewall if it can be avoided. I can live with a stop drilled crack as long as it isn't a safety issue.
 
A friend just emailed me this thread. I have a 4 that I bought in June with just shy of 500 hours on it. Good build job, no cracks in the firewall, things look good. What exactly are we looking at in the picture?
 
MaryR said:
A friend just emailed me this thread. I have a 4 that I bought in June with just shy of 500 hours on it. Good build job, no cracks in the firewall, things look good. What exactly are we looking at in the picture?
Click to expand...
Hi Mary,

You?re looking at the weldments/bracket that serves as the attach point for the engine mount, there are four of these, one in each corner of the firewall behind the firewall, pictured are the old lightweight ones, you check them from behind the firewall, take some photos of yours and we can tell you if you have the new ones or the old ones.
 
Thanks, guys. I will go look and take pictures. I am guessing they're new, but I will go check.
 
The old weldments are out and the new ones are in and waiting to be bolted and riveted in place. I met a gentleman from Houston at the airport and he showed me how he built side gussets for extra strength. So since Ive got everything tore down I went ahead and made some gussets from 4130 chromoly steel. It may be overkill, but it makes me feel a lot better. I think they turned out nice.
http://[URL=http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/aconner7/media/image_zpse69a6610.jpg.html][/URL]
 
Gussets

Arlie,
Hi - please could you post a couple more photos and maybe a drawing of the gussets? Sounds like a sensible/useful addition....

Thanks

Chris
 
Search the forum and you will find lots of posts on this gusset......a common mod is to add the RV-8 gusset to the RV-4. It's also described in excellent detail 1/2 way down on this page: http://www.romeolima.com/RV3works/Airframe/airframe.html

RV-8 Gussets: F-855PP-R and F-855PP-L

Much thanks to Randy at http://www.romeolima.com for the info and pics.

DSC_0376.JPG
 
Chris, these gussets were basically eyeballed for size because i wasn't aware they were a common mod. Mine measure roughly 6"x4". They are not exactly the same because I had to use the existing holes that were from the old weldments and had to custom fit each one.
I went to Randy's site and looked at his gussets that were for an RV-8. He said that this is not a Vans approved modification, so I hope I didn't screw up.
http://[URL=http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/aconner7/media/image_zpsd35b411c.jpg.html][/URL]
http://[URL=http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/aconner7/media/image_zps939e52ab.jpg.html][/URL]
http://[URL=http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/aconner7/media/image_zps7803e247.jpg.html][/URL]
http://[URL=http://s1361.photobucket.com/user/aconner7/media/image_zps9d8b23c2.jpg.html][/URL]
 
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