Warbird Information Exchange

Where am I sending a check ole boy!

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“Knowing what’s right, doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.”

Wood working project complete. The shop opens tomorrow and I think she will be very successful. Glad I could build her what she wanted.
Changing room 1

Changing room 2

Sales counter

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Very nice!!!

Aft oil cooler cradle bits.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

OK, so I am going to regroup and try to be a bit more concise in my posting here. Just throwing pictures up doesn't pass along the scope of the project. Let's go back on the story of the oil coolers and their relocation.

Here is what everyone knows as the stock FG-1D inlet configuration.


Here is the race modification


Here is how the oil cooler is mounted in the stock location. Note the four diagonal braces to the left of the cooler in the rib behind the vane assembly. Three of the four have been removed in the race mod.


Here is how the race mount looked.



Notice the new duct directly to the oil cooler and the modifications to the leading edge skins and lower wing skins.


Here is the modified cooler saddle mount made by cutting up the stock saddles and mounting them to a plate mounted to the leading edge of the main spar.


Note the missing elliptical braces. I called Goodyear parts dept but no one answered... Now to make elliptical tubing braces.


The stock aft cooler saddle ( courtesy of Connecticut Air and Space Center and their project)


The stock forward saddle


Since the racers simply cut and modified the stock mounts, we chose to salvage the saddle hoops and remake the rest of the mount.


That takes us to the post of yesterday. More to come. Thanks.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Wow I didn't realize she was that cut up / modified. I would have thought that the VS-10700 assembly would have had major structural implications if you just deleted 3/4 of the diagonals. I guess some IA signed off on it. Thanks for sharing.

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

Meanwhile back with the oil cooler saddles...

The hoops are salvaged, cleaned up and the the curve checked to match the oil cooler seat.


I love these transfer screws. Pick up hole centers dead nuts.


Fixture clamps



All checked for fit


The two plates are separated by small spacers that are tack welded inside. I hold in place with brass screws, The spuds are 5/16" OD with #10 ID. If I used steel screws, there's a good chance that penetration could weld the screw in place. Copper based alloys won't take. No problem here.



Tacked

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

TIG or MIG? With your skills, I will assume TIG. I'm still at the 110v Lincoln MIG stage.

TIG, the small stuff with Miller Diversion 185. Awesome welder. For high power, good old reliable Dialarc HF 250.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Finishing up on the aft cooler saddles, boxing in the top side. The shims are an addition to improve the fit in the mounts. As all these planes are the same but different, ours just had much more clearance and to avoid excessive stress on the mount brackets, we shimmed each side .050".


Fit up and tacked in place



Finish welded. Welding was done in this fixture and in short segments on each side, flipping it over multiple times to avoid distortion.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Looks really good Scott.
Thanks for posting, this is really interesting.

Andy

Aft cradles finished. Squirted a little primer to protect until real paint time.




Next the forward LH begins

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

Looks fantastic! Self-etching primer?

Just simple zinc phosphate primer only to protect them from oxidation until later in the project when all will get the same color paint, yet to be determined.

Progress on the left forward oil cooler cradle. It's amazing that nowhere on the drawing is the angle of this mount called out. Lots of detail but what I would think to be a critical bit of info, nothing. Good to have a sample to work from.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

More progress on the LH craddle



Welding a little each side to avoid/reduce any distortion


Flipped over on the fixture to weld the same on the other side


Original and new side by each

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."