Wolf Pitts engine mount and gear
I spent some time today working on the fit of the engine mount. My bolt pattern on the front of the Pitts fuselage was slightly non-standard. This caused a slight misalignment after it was modified by Wolf Aircraft for their rod landing gear setup. Tony called me up when he noticed the problem in his jig and had me measure a few things on the fuselage to confirm. When I got the mount back, the bottom left bushing on the mount was about 1/8" off from the bushing in the fuselage. The other bottom bushing was a bit tight as well.
I drilled and dug out the old bushing in the fuselage and replaced it with a new one with the correct alignment. I got as far as getting it fit and installed with a couple large tack welds. Almost all of the binding on the bolts is gone now. It is easy to install and remove all four bolts. I'll get the mount bolted up and back on the gear to do some sanity checks and when everything checks out, I'll do the finish welding.
This is good progress. I thought it would be more difficult, but it went as planned and was easy to do. Soon I'll be able to move on to the other fuselage details needed before it can be media blasted and painted or powder coated.
I also put in an order with Aircraft Spruce for a bunch of aileron hardware and wood needed for the new wing mods. I should be able to make some good progress on the wings over the next week.
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