Done 2 dimomas so far and both clean as. I used piece of wooden rod 13mm dia with flaps of emery cloth in a drill~did a dry run on a piece rusted tube and it removed rust ok so system works BUT we did discover elongated holes on one side were 2 bolts were~aeroweld filled in edge of holes and we re shaped holes (job was done twice to get it right)~now need to refit~notice SB speaks of very close tolerance of holes ~Ian M
-----Original Message----- From: Nigel Baker <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, 15 October 2011 12:14 To: DOGS <[email protected]> Subject: [DOG mailing list] Heads Up. Hi All. Have just done the Torque Tube Corrosion Inspection. I know others have done it and passed but ours did not. The right wing was fine. The left wing tube looked OK on first inspection but after tapping the open end of the tube on the concrete floor of the hanger guess what came out. See attached photo. I ran a boroscope up the tube and found the water had been sitting about 1000mm in from the end. While the damage was not severe it non the less failed the inspection so back to Diamond for a new tube. During the annual we found some loose timber under the Centre Spar section which if it fell off completely could fowl the controls in the centre console eg Aileron and Elevator. This timber was a poor grade and used as a former on assembly of the spar centre section. We had the same problem in GYT some years ago but the timber was in good enough condition to glue it back up to the bottom of the panel in the bottom of the section where the main spars go through. This lower glass panel does not form part of the Spar Centre structure but is more a guide for the spar stubs on rigging. The timber had delaminate though it’s thickness along the grain and so many laminates it was not viable to glue it back together so had to remove it. Not an easy task. Access through the back of the centre section is limited even after removal of push rods and bell cranks. The timber went most of the way to the side of the fuselage. We cut a hole in the bottom panel previously described to gain access and got it all out. See attached. Cheers. Nige.
