JANUARY 22, 2005
This is the horizontal leg of the right WD-602 after I drilled out all the rivets and removed it. Ignore the distorted holes, I knew that I was replacing the part so I did not care how much damage I did drilling it. The real issue was edge distance on the horizontal legs of both of the pieces. These are what the motor mount bolts to and they take most of the engine thrust and most of the stress transmitted from the landing gear. I will need to cut and splice the longerons next. I talked to the engineers at Van's about this and they were OK with this process.
You can see that the WD-602 is removed along with the top stiffener on the firewall and the F-695 Gusset. These will be replaced with new parts. The longeron has not been cut yet. It will be cut half way between the vertical leg of the WD-602 and the F 902 bulkhead. The splice will be made with 1/8 inch by 5/8 inch 2024 T3 plate. The vertical will run from the end of the WD 602 leg to the F902. The horizontal will run from F 902 to the firewall, over the top of the F-695 Gusset. This will require milling the splice plate by .063 inch to clear the gusset. Ken Krueger at Van's told me that this will result in no loss of strength along the longeron due to the higher strength of the 2024 over the 6061 alloys. I will post more pictures when the new parts arrive and I cut the longerons.