Here's the phenolic installed in the base of the vertical stab.
I tried installing the new elevator trim cable that came with the plane, but found it's 29' 6" length was too long. The rudder trim cable has no turnbuckle and I have it adjusted to approximate tension.
Here's a photo of the two ends of the cable overlapping
I talked to Univair who said I could send in my cable so it can be shortened and a new bolt end put on it with a special swageing tool I don't have. Kevin helped me measure a new elevator trim cable and we're going to have it cut to 29' 2".
I installed the belly formers and looking at it from the bottom front of the airplane you can really see the shape of the fuselage.
A couple days after Christmas, Kevin, Dad and I drove up to Corning, CA and visited Earl Allen for some parts we need for our ship. It turned into an all-day field trip and we had a great time. Earl was very gracious with his time and knowledge. Took lots of photos of various Stinsons Earl has. Earl has added a new building which is now full of fuselages and wings with more to come. We purchased a 1/2" fuel system including fuel selector valve, gascolator, and L and R fuel tank lines, landing gear to fuselage fairings, an original Stinson starter switch, and a cabin ceiling light and speaker grill. I could tell the field trip to Corning really pumped up Kevin and I couldn't wait to get back into the hangar to keep working.
A few days later, Kevin and I spent a day working on the airplane riveting the top former onto the fuselage. I practiced riveting on some scrap the week before, but it was easier riveting with 2 people with one inside the cabin and the other bucking the rivets on the outside. I had already riveted some of the right side of the top former and the bottom fuselage former near the landing gear. I had to re-do some rivets because my rivet gun moved off the rivet head. We also used some Cherry Max blind rivets for some areas we couldn't get the bucking bar into.
I cleaned up and installed the new fuel lines and valve but discovered I routed the lines incorrectly (inside) the fuselage frame members. We found this out when we tried installing the instrument panel and it wouldn't fit. Also discovered our original Stinson 108 panel would not fit in the frame because of some welded brackets that were confusing at first. Then, when I put the panel on that came with the plane these new brackets made sense. I also looked in my various photos and online photos to see if they had these brackets and all Stinson 108 fuselages don't have them. Here's us trying to fit an original Stinson instrument panel in and the top "L" shaped bracket is blocking us from the install.
Old panel sitting on the unusual brackets that will have to be removed to install the original panel.
New 1/2" fuel lines after I cleaned them up and re-installed them correctly OUTSIDE the fuselage frame members.
We also installed the bushings for the control wheel shafts. Kevin had these re-chromed and we made sure they had free travel on the bushings before we drilled and installed the 2 screws for each bushing. It was very satisfying seeing the control shafts move freely in place. We still need to re-drill some mounting holes on the new universal joints on the control yokes.
We also decided to re-build the boot cowls with thicker .032 aluminum instead of the .024 aluminum that it has. It will make the cabin quieter and we saw some good examples of this work that Earl had. We already had the .032 aluminum too so the decision was easy. I was told the fuel selector knob shaft was the same for the 3/8" fuel and 1/2" fuel valve, but when I went to fit my old shaft on it, the cotter pin holes didn't match up (not even close). So I'm going to buy one from Earl.
Next up will be some woodworking for the cabin trim, a new mounting platform for the Whelen strobe power supply, installing the ELT antenna in the top fuselage stringer/former, cutting those old panel welded brackets off and fitting an original Stinson instrument panel into our bird.
