REmoving the horizontal stab - rusted in place

[crispy critter]

Re: REmoving the horizontal stab - rusted in place

Mike,
Bill makes a good point but just make sure you use the wedges as close to the stablizer mounts as possible and not towards the center or you could also bend the stablizer or longeron

[mhorowit]

Re: REmoving the horizontal stab - rusted in place

Mike, you're not gonna try to pry that stabilizer off with the brace wire connected, are you ? It will be easier of it is not connected .

Oh, no

.

Two large wedges, placed between the stabilizer and the upper longeron right next to the attach bolts, will probably remove the stabilizer. Tap the wedges with a hammer in small increments, plenty of penetrating oil, and you should have it loose in a jiffy. .

Good idea, I was using a wedge at the forward end. There was something at the aft end that made me think it wasn't a good idea; don't recall what it was, maybe a large distance from the longeron to the stab???? I'll relook it this weekend.

[mhorowit]

Re: REmoving the horizontal stab - rusted in place

Two large wedges, placed between the stabilizer and the upper longeron right next to the attach bolts, will probably remove the stabilizer. Tap the wedges with a hammer in small increments, plenty of penetrating oil, and you should have it loose in a jiffy. The long pry bar can bend the stub tubes if you try too hard or too much on one side before reversing the bar. IMHO there is less risk of bending those tubes by using the wedges. I would put thin metal on the stabilizer root edge and the fuselage longerons, and let the wedges slip between the metal so you don't even mar the fabric.

Worked fine for the forward studs, but the longerons are too far from the stabilizer to do much more than cause the wedge to cock off to the side. - Mike

[mhorowit]

Re: REmoving the horizontal stab - rusted in place

Well, I got them off.
It wasn't pretty.
I had to hacksaw a groove in the horiz.stab. where it fits over the stub.
I'll uncover them in a day or so and determine if it's worth repairing (thinking if the elevator was so rusted, better be prepared)- Mike

[VictorBravo]

Re: REmoving the horizontal stab - rusted in place

I've seen more than one advertiser on the net (including our own Dedrekon) who probably has stabilizers and elevators for sale if you need them.