I know this has been commented upon before, but I believe it bears repeating for
those who are getting close to installing their fuel tanks.
The instructions, as recently as November 2000 for the XS, advise to place a 2CM
spacer under the top of the fuel tank (upside down in the cockpit module)before
glassing in the anchor brackets. With this spacer, the bottom of the tank
is flush with the bottom of the cockpit module. This is well and good, but the
wing spars will not fit in with the tank in this position.
Thanks to an e-mail from Chris Napier who gave me a heads-up regarding this
position
I was double attentive to the possibility of the problem, and almost didn't
catch it. The problem is quite real.
Using a 3/4" x 4" piece of scrap wood, I fabricated a template that replicated
the width of the spars at the pin location (the widest area of the spar). I
held
the piece of wood up to the wing spar at the pin bushing, and holding the
wood vertically and centered widthwise on the hole, scribed the hole location
with a pencil through the bushing, and scribed a line at the top and bottom of
the spar across the width of the wood. I then cut the wood along the lines and
drilled the 1/2" hole.
Holding the template in place with the 1/2" bolt used to locate the bushings in
the cockpit previously, one can sight along the bottom edge and see if there
will be interference of the spar with the forward ledge of the tank. On the
other
side, you can hang the template off the bolt as it protrudes through the
metal spar guide already bonded in place.
I found, similar to Chris, that the correct spacer height for the top of the
tank
off the inside of the horizantal portion of the seat back was closer to 1 CM,
rather than 2. This results in the bottom of the tank not being flush with
the bottom of the cockpit module - which is a good thing - as it allows room
for the 3 + 1 ply brace to be laminated.
Cleve
A198 Mono XS
Detroit, MI
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