Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Reinstall Roll Servo

I received the roll servo from Dynon yesterday.  The packing slip says they corrected the problem and waived the repair fee because the servo is still under warranty.  They did not indicate the nature of the problem, only that it had been fixed.  I went to the hangar and reinstalled the servo.  It seems that there is always something that causes a simple procedure to become complicated.  The first thing I did was make the electrical connections.  After making sure the connections were good I proceeded to install the servo and the flaperon pushrod.   While attempting to install the servo I dropped the bolt and washer used to attach the flaperon pushrod to the roll servo arm.  Of course I was in the baggage compartment and had to exit the airplane to get a light and magnet so I could retrieve the bolt from under the baggage compartment.  What fun we have when trying to complete a fairly simple task.  I was finally able to install the servo and install the pushrod successfully.  At that point I turned on the SkyView.  As it was booting up it found the servo and installed some updated software.  I ran the servo test and calibration.  It seems all is well.  
I reinstalled the covers, plates, upholstery, seats, etc.  I also installed the top fuselage skin and upper cowling.  Of course that did not go without a hitch.  While installing the 100+ screws I ended up using my 8/32 tap to fix the threads on several nutplates to keep from stripping out the heads of the screws.  One of the nutplates was under the left canopy attachment arm so I was forced to remove the canopy.  All in all, I was able to get everything reinstalled and tightened so the airplane is now ready to fly.  The oil pressure problem has been repaired and the roll servo is now back on line.  I would have flown today but the weather was pretty bad at that point.  Severe rain at the airport with lots of thunder showers in the vicinity.  I will return to the airport and do some touch and goes tomorrow morning.