04/01/2019 - Flap motor drilling - 3H

A view of the inside attachment of the flap motor pivoting on the AN4 bolt.

The image below shows the bottom end of the flap motor where the rod end bearing that pushes the clevis of the flap weldment is secured by a locking nut.
Vans has released a service bulleting (SB 07-4-12) that this attachment should be secured by a safety wire. Probably, some builders have had issues of the rod end bearing detaching in flight which is not something you want.

Vans wants you to drill a hole in the push extending arm of the flap motor. This is kind of freaky to do but not as difficult as it sounds. I made 2 holes as I saw this on some other builders sites.

(don't do this, Just drill 1. I'll explain later why)

Another view from the side

 Then I drilled a hole in the middle of the rod end bearing and tried to safety wire the hole thing. This makes that the rod end bearing cannot turn.

Finally, I decided not to go this way. After talking to Vans support I learned that the actual thing you want to achieve is that the locking nut cannot turn. Both ways of securing (through the rod end or along the clevis) are ok for Vans but they did say that drilling a hole in the rod end bearing weakens that part. So I decided in the end only to go for one hole usage, installing a new rod end bearing and securing it like on the plans and in the SB.


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