Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Yaw Damper Servo Mount

I ordered 200 more 3/32 cleco's from Vans.  Getting a few with each order so I can have plenty for the wings.  I now have ~1050ea 3/32 cleco's!



NOTE: The following is a spin off the plans and into experimental world.  Garmin makes an install kit for both the Pitch and the Yaw Damper servos.  Just buy them for a simple care-free install.

So I wanted to make sure I put in the provisions for the pitch servo and the yaw damper servo now while the tail cone is wide open and easy to work with.  The pitch servo bracket is a no brainer, bolt in place bracket I purchased from Van's.  The yaw damper servo mount kit I also purchased from Van's however it is designed for the RV-14 and not the RV-10.  The good news is that most of it fits right out of the gate.  The support bracket that ties the mount to the bulkhead is where things go off plans and must be dealt with....

To give context, here is what the assembly should look like when installed on a RV-14:


And here is how all the parts go together on a RV-14:


The problem is that the bracket does not align like that on the RV-10.  The bulkhead holes are pre-drilled in a different configuration which leaves things looking like this:

Photo by Parish Moffitt
Notice the holes in the top and bottom of the bracket do not align with the prepunched holes in the bulkhead.  Also notice the center hole is not concentric with the larger hole prepunched in the bracket.

To fix this I did something very similar to what Caleb Tennis posted he did on VAF with this post:


First I fabbed up these doubler plates that will sit on the aft faces of the brackets mount ears to cover that larger pre-drilled hole in the center of the bracket's ears.



 Next I noticed that when everything is cleco'ed into place, there is a pretty good sized gap between the bracket and the bulkhead.  I do not want to just force everything together so I will make a spacer for this issue.


 Next I match drilled the mounting ear doubler plates to the bracket's mounting ears.  Then I countersunk the fwd face of the holes to receive flush rivets because these will go against the spacer later.


 Next I squired on some rattle can primer on these parts because I need to go ahead and rivet these doublers to the bracket mounting ears.  No time to prime with AKZO!


Here are the doublers riveted to the bracket's mounting ears.


 Next I made a spacer out of 0.063" sheet.  I used the bracket as a template to mark and cut it out.
Then I match drilled the center hole of the bulkhead to the whole assembly using a long drill bit.  I clamped the whole assembly well before drilling.


 Next I punched this hole I just drilled up to a #12 to receive a #3 AN bolt.


 This is what I was after.  The ability to unbolt and remove this bracket in the future when I need to crawl into the tailcone.


 Those two bolts need a nutplate on the fwd side of the bulkhead.  I used my nutplate jig to get the job done.  Pilot side...


Co-pilot side...


I will need to countersink these holes for the nutplate mount rivets as I want them to go through the spacer and the bulkhead web.




I will install a nutplate on each side fwd of this bulkhead to receive the bolts.


I will need to dimple these bulkhead holes and install flush rivets on the aft side.  This is because the spacer will lay on top of this area.

Pretty good little task but I am very happy with how it turned out!   Thanks to Caleb Tennis for the ideas I stole from his post!



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