L2 Restoration

[Jerry Miel]

I am a new member of this forum and am still trying to navigate how it works. It is a little different from other ones that I use.

My project is a 1941 Taylorcraft L2 (AKA O-57, DC-65). It is SN 4063, N55348. Military SN 42-7789. Finished Nov. 7, 1941, one month before Pearl Harbor. That makes it the 22nd of the first 24 "straight" L2's.

The airplane last flew in 1956. It was not damaged but needed some major covering repairs. It has not changed hands but a couple of times since then so it is very complete. The sad part is that it was not well stored and suffered considerable distortion.

I purchased it about 1987 and did considerable work on it over the next 10 years. The fuselage is basically ready for cover. Then life happened and it has sat in the back of my hangar for the next 25 years. This year I retired from working on other peoples airplanes and determined to focus on this restoration. The biggest challenge now is restoring the wings. They have the original metal ribs and spars with plenty of corrosion. So far this year, I have totally disassembled one wing and began working on it piece by piece: Cleaning, blasting, treating corrosion, and priming. I have found that most of the parts are airworthy. I now have that first wing partially re-assembled.

I live in Green Valley, AZ and work at Ryan Field (KRYN) in Tucson. I appreciate any suggestions and comments.

Jerry Miel

[Robert Lees]

Welcome Jerry.

In April 2017, our four Taylorcraft BC12D aircraft landed at Ryan Field and were welcomed with open arms by some local pilots there, who were very generous to us, lending their vehicle (after we we stymied by the local car rental company).

I have a trip report of that here:
https://vb.taylorcraft.org/forum/tay...osted-nov-2017

Our landing at Ryan Field, Tuscon, is about 2/3 way down the page.

I'm sure you'll get some good input from the folks here; I know a bit about the non-wartime Taylorcraft stuff but not much about the L2.

Post your photos!

Rob
(Photo below is our four at Ryan Field)

[Jerry Miel]

Roabert,

Thanks for the greeting and report. I'm sorry that I missed your group. Just behind the airplanes in the picture is the offices of Mobile Aire. Every day about 9 am I wander over to their office where a bunch of us old guys gather for coffee and BS.

Where are you located? There are a couple of T crafts on the field besides mine but they are not active. There is an active one on a private field about 20 miles south.

I have done lots of research on the tandem T's and have lots of information some of which is not published.

Jerry

[Robert Lees]

Hi Jerry, the yellow-and-blue one (mine), closest to the camera, and the dark blue one (furthest away), live close to Rockford, Illinois.
The red one lives in north-west Iowa. The green one lives in Missouri.

Rob

[Jerry Miel]

I have my first repaired wing about 80% completed. I tried to upload some pictures, but I don't know how to reduce the size to the limit required. Any ideas?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to trammel the wing and also how to set the tension on the drag and anti-drag wires? What is the proper tension and how does one measure it?

Jerry

[3Dreaming]

If you have an iPhone you can email through the phone , and resize the pictures. Otherwise there are places online where you can resize online.

[Hank Jarrett]

The drag and anti drag wires aren't adjusted for "tension". They are used to square up each section of the wing. Trammeling WILL NOT end up with the same tension on all of the wires. You start at the root and adjust the tensions so the leading and trailing edges and the spars are perpendicular to the root end. Then you adjust the second bay so the spars are straight there and all of the spars in both of the two inner bays are perpendicular to the root and straight. Don't be surprised when adjusting the second bay throws the first bay out of square. You will probably have to go back and "tweak" the inner bay which will "guess what"? throw the second back out. It is an iterative process and you have to keep going back to the first sections and doing fine adjustments till you end up with ALL of the bays square with straight spars all the way to the end of the last bay. It isn't nearly as painful as it sounds. The adjustments get smaller and smaller as you go. Once EVERYTHING is straight and square leave it alone for a couple of days and then sight down the spars again as everything relaxes. It will probably be crooked in some areas again. Just re-adjust to get everything straight and let it sit. Kind of a wash, rinse and repeat till it all holds. DON'T FORGET TO TIGHTEN ALL THE LOCK NUTS WHEN YOU GET IT RIGHT!!!

Just a few reminders. You DID remember to shim the twist in before you started didn't you? Also, the wires cross so they are separating, not pressing on each other? Make sure the right wire crosses on top! The wash in the wing should move the wires APART. It is actually kind of fun. Even MORE fun to watch someone else do it. When it is right it will make covering easier too.

Hank

[Ragwing nut]

The drag and anti drag wires aren't adjusted for "tension". They are used to square up each section of the wing. Trammeling WILL NOT end up with the same tension on all of the wires. You start at the root and adjust the tensions so the leading and trailing edges and the spars are perpendicular to the root end. Then you adjust the second bay so the spars are straight there and all of the spars in both of the two inner bays are perpendicular to the root and straight. Don't be surprised when adjusting the second bay throws the first bay out of square. You will probably have to go back and "tweak" the inner bay which will "guess what"? throw the second back out. It is an iterative process and you have to keep going back to the first sections and doing fine adjustments till you end up with ALL of the bays square with straight spars all the way to the end of the last bay. It isn't nearly as painful as it sounds. The adjustments get smaller and smaller as you go. Once EVERYTHING is straight and square leave it alone for a couple of days and then sight down the spars again as everything relaxes. It will probably be crooked in some areas again. Just re-adjust to get everything straight and let it sit. Kind of a wash, rinse and repeat till it all holds. DON'T FORGET TO TIGHTEN ALL THE LOCK NUTS WHEN YOU GET IT RIGHT!!!

Just a few reminders. You DID remember to shim the twist in before you started didn't you? Also, the wires cross so they are separating, not pressing on each other? Make sure the right wire crosses on top! The wash in the wing should move the wires APART. It is actually kind of fun. Even MORE fun to watch someone else do it. When it is right it will make covering easier too.

Hank

If you square the first bay, it won't pull out of shape when you do the next one. The wires should end up with the same tension except for the last bay. You can tune by sound if you know what your doing. You want the bays square before nailing down ribs and leading edge. There's a process to the entire assembly of the wing.

[Hank Jarrett]

If you square the first bay, it won't pull out of shape when you do the next one. The wires should end up with the same tension except for the last bay. You can tune by sound if you know what your doing. You want the bays square before nailing down ribs and leading edge. There's a process to the entire assembly of the wing.

Maybe if you have nice straight and stable spars, but a lot of older wings that have been taken apart have spars that will get a curve awaiting reassembly. And it isn't always a nice continuous curve. It costs nothing to check and recheck as you go and if everything stays nice and straight you are golden. As for all the wires having the same tension that will only happen if the spars aren't trying to pull the bays into parallelograms. If they are nice and straight they should have the same note when plucked, but i sure have heard a lot of them that the tension was different. Best to CHECK and be sure and check again before covering to see if the wing has relaxed into a crooked position.

Hank

Costs nothing to be sure.

[Ragwing nut]

Maybe if you have nice straight and stable spars, but a lot of older wings that have been taken apart have spars that will get a curve awaiting reassembly. And it isn't always a nice continuous curve. It costs nothing to check and recheck as you go and if everything stays nice and straight you are golden. As for all the wires having the same tension that will only happen if the spars aren't trying to pull the bays into parallelograms. If they are nice and straight they should have the same note when plucked, but i sure have heard a lot of them that the tension was different. Best to CHECK and be sure and check again before covering to see if the wing has relaxed into a crooked position.

Hank

Costs nothing to be sure.

I agree you need to double check, but if the compression members are in the proper location, (3 different lengths), and you properly squared the first bay, then the rest will fall in line.

[Jerry Miel]

Hank and Ragwing. Thank you both for your advice. It is much appreciated. I think that I understand the trammeling process. I had thought that there was also a tension spec for the drag wires, but I guess they just need to be tightened and square. I had never considered wash in the wings. Are there specs for that and how is it adjusted? You mentioned a shim for that. I don't find any shims on my wing. I would assume that wash would be controlled by the struts and adjusting them? As you can see, my wings are all metal including the spars. That might make a difference. The picture is of the repaired wing. It was totally disassembled and every part cleaned, treated, and primed before reassembly. I still need to make new leading edges. I am using the old ones to properly position each of the ribs in place. I am certain that all parts are in the same location (including drag struts) as I kept the well identified.

All suggestions are welcome. Jerry

[Ragwing nut]

Hank and Ragwing. Thank you both for your advice. It is much appreciated. I think that I understand the trammeling process. I had thought that there was also a tension spec for the drag wires, but I guess they just need to be tightened and square. I had never considered wash in the wings. Are there specs for that and how is it adjusted? You mentioned a shim for that. I don't find any shims on my wing. I would assume that wash would be controlled by the struts and adjusting them? As you can see, my wings are all metal including the spars. That might make a difference. The picture is of the repaired wing. It was totally disassembled and every part cleaned, treated, and primed before reassembly. I still need to make new leading edges. I am using the old ones to properly position each of the ribs in place. I am certain that all parts are in the same location (including drag struts) as I kept the well identified.

All suggestions are welcome. Jerry

Put a block under the spar to give 1.5-2* of twist.

[Jerry Miel]

Here are a couple of more pictures of my project. The fuselage is mostly ready for cover. The picture in the previous post is of the first wing mostly put back together after extensive cleaning. The other wing is still on the rack with lots of rust and corrosion.
Jerry

[Hank Jarrett]

Great project! Can't wait to see more details. Guess you won't have many problems with curving of wood spars! ;-)

Hank