Title: WD-409 tailwheel weldment, F-711, F-712, F-779
This took forever. Also, the battery died in my phone, so I have some pix at the beginning, and again at he end, but not much in between. Trimmed the elliptical hole in the F-779 lower aft tailcone skin for the WD-409 landing gear weldment per template. The template is a starting point with trim to fit needed afterward. To get a tight fit without a huge gap I did a lot of trial fitting and then enlarging the hole where needed with a half round vixen file. To get the weldment in/out, you have to install/remove either the F-711 or F-712 bulkhead from the skin, and that .040 skin fits like crap, no matter how much bending/tweaking/flexing you do. Finally got it done with the weldment drilled to the F-711 bulkhead. making sure it's located correctly prior to drilling is crucial. If you get it in crooked or not level with respect to the F-711 bulkhead it will show up with a tailwheel spring clocked to one side or tilted over. Both could cause all sorts of handling problems, not to mention just being ugly. I measured, clamped, walked away, read the plans again, measured again...you get the idea. In the end, it came out fine. There is a pilot hole in the skin that you enlarge for access to the nut that holds the tailwheel spring in the mount. I enlarged it to 5/8" which is perfectly sized for a 7/16 socket, but due to the angle of the mount I'm going to have to go a little bit bigger to get a socket to sit on the nut squarely. Next time I'm at the hardware store I'll see what size sheet metal plug they have and size the hole accordingly. Probably 3/4" You are supposed to drill for two "keeper" rivets between the weldment and the F-712, but I'm too tired at this point to try to decipher this mess of dimensions to locate them. I'll do this next time.


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