I have been posting construction tips over at Supercub.org, but since it is about a Carbon Cub, this seems like a better place to post. So I will be posting future tips and thoughts on this site.

Floor board


When the floorboard is finally set in place one feels like some real progress is being made. But before setting that floorboard in place here some tips.

There are some 40 holes pre drilled and tapped in the frame for screws to secure the floor board. But odds are the threads are a bit rusty or have a bit of powder coat on them which will make screwing problematic. So get out a tap and run it through the holes before the floor board is set in place.

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We used the Boelube with the tap. Good stuff. A piece of tape on the tap let us know when we had gone in far enough. After each hole was tapped it was marked with a silver Sharpee so we could keep track of what we were doing.

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The screws went in easily thanks to this little extra step.

We also sprayed a bit of Corrosion X into each of the threaded holes. This is pretty neat stuff we picked up at EAA Air Adventure a couple of years ago. It is a rust preventer that comes out like a foamy oil but clings to the steel. It works well on raw steel surfaces, like a drill press table.

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The manual describes pre-installing the pedals before the floorboard is set in place. The pedals have screws that go directly into the frame (two on each front, one on each rear), so preinstalling them could create an issue with aligning them once the floor is in place. We simply installed the floor board and then set the pedals in place. Initially all the screws are just put in with a couple of turns and then once they are all set in place tightened. (We used a battery drill with the torque preset to assure uniform tension). Finally the pedal screws that go through the floor board with backing washers and nuts were added. There were no alignment problems using this approach.

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