Reviving WHH

[Greenman]

Recently bought damaged Super Koala ZS-WHH. Will start to repair towards 2009.

Any help, suggestions, advice etc. would be welcome.

Koala accident (1)s.JPG (91.95 KiB) Viewed 6533 times

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[Morph]

Good luck

Once you strip the fabric off you will have a better idea of the damage. Often not as bad as it looks now

[grostek]

Take the fabric only off the component you want to repair. Once that is repaired move on to the next component.

After taking off the fabric, take photos or make sketches of how things look.

Dont throw away any pieces of wood, they can be used as a guide to determine where what was where before the damage occured.

Label all metal pieces showing which side is up or down or left or right as appropriate.

The best part of working with wood is that the structure can be repaired by splicing in new pieces of wood and the structure will have its original strength with no weight gain.

Try to get a set of drawings to help you, failing that try to find another Koala that is stripped so that you can take measurements from that airframe, failing that make an educated quess based on the broken parts you have avaiable.
Also remember to check if the component will match fit onto another. Check double check and always measure twice.

Repair the wings first because when they are done you can hang them up on a wall or under the rafters of the garage /workshop.

When the time comes for reassembly, take the metal pieces and paint strip them then sand/bead blast them, inspect, repair any damage or fabricate a new part then prime , undercoat and then final coat the metal part. Start of painting after sand/bead blasting should be done within 1 hour of finishing sand/bead blasting, this is to prevent corrosion starting on the blasted part. Allow adequate drying between painting the various coats of paint.

If holes in wooden structure are black then the odds are that you may have localised wood rot there in the hole.

All bolts should be a good tap fit in holes.

If you need to remove wood rot, measure the position of the hole and make a sketch. Drill the hole oversize, Glue in a new piece of round wood. Allow glue to dry and cure. smooth surface, mark position of hole and redrill new hole. Give this hole 2 or three treatments of a good quality wood spar varnish especially on the inside. Allow varnish to dry before assembling parts.

Splices should be between 12 and 15 to 1 ie if the wood is 1 inch thick your splice should be 12 inches long minimum.

Good luck with the rebuild.

Kind regards,

Gunter Rostek.

[Bushbaby Aircraft]

We have a locally (SA) manufactured covering system that we use on the Bushbabies. Much cheaper than imported stuff and have proven itself. I Know some Koala's have Bushbaby wings on. Give us a call, we can definately help with some of the stuff.

[GR8-DAD]

Jo jo jo Tracer, that looks more like a rebuild to me than a repair job, but good luck anyway

[grostek]

Hi Tracer2

Here is a link that will give you much more info that you may require.

http://www.auf.asn.au/scratchbuilder/joints.html

Happy reading.

Kind regards,

Gunter Rostek.

[Greenman]

I did ask our friend Demon by email that my logon name be changed to "Greenman" after I saw that there was already a "Tracer" registered to avoid confusion, but I believe he has not been able to do just that. Sorry Tracer, I hope it will be sorted out soon.

Thanx a lot for the good advice given so far. I will start with the wings first. I also think that this will end up in a rebuild rather than a fix-up. What should I do with the motor? Just leave it be for now or is there anything I should do to "winterize" (store) the engine ? The Airy is under roof with the wings removed at the moment.

I also need to do a transfer of the aircraft to my name. At this time the aircraft does have an ATF that expires 02/09/2008. What would all the steps be that I should take to accomplish this?
I do have the logbook but the accident is not logged in it . Should I follow it up or is the gov. a wee bit slow on the updating of the accident reports?

I believe with guys like you as tutors/friends I will eventually be able to fly in and partake in the comradie of being a microlighter! Especially thanks to Gunter for the advice and link.

[Morph]

I did ask our friend Demon by email that my logon name be changed to "Greenman" after I saw that there was already a "Tracer" registered to avoid confusion, but I believe he has not been able to do just that. Sorry Tracer, I hope it will be sorted out soon.

Done

[Morph]

What should I do with the motor? Just leave it be for now or is there anything I should do to "winterize" (store) the engine ?

Take it off. You will need to be able to rotate the entire airframe, and the engine is just too heavy. Open the plugs, spray some Q 20 in there, take the carbs off and spray some into the intake ports, rotate the engine until the piston is at the top and spray into the crank case cavity. Put it all together again, and close up all the holes. drain the fuel out of the carbs and the pipes. Refer to the operators manual. However the manual starts with a running engine, which you don't have at the moment.

I also need to do a transfer of the aircraft to my name. At this time the aircraft does have an ATF that expires 02/09/2008. What would all the steps be that I should take to accomplish this?

Fill in the attached form and send it to CAA. However I would not even worry about it now as the aircraft is not flying. Rebuild the aircraft, get the AP to inspect every step of the way, especially prior to recovering, to see if you have done a good job. Then get the final AP inspection, and the CAR47A and submit them to CAA

I do have the logbook but the accident is not logged in it . Should I follow it up or is the gov. a wee bit slow on the updating of the accident reports?

phone CAA and find out if the accident was logged. By law it should have. Your AP can sort the log book out once you have repaired the aircraft and are ready to test fly it.

[Greenman]

Thanx Morph. I really appreciate the namechange and information. I will remove motor as suggested. Will keep you up to date as I progress.

[Tailspin]

Good luck greenman.
you have your work cut out for you. STRONGS

[KFA]

Hi, if it was me I would strip all the fabric off and inspect the whole airframe. The covering is not that expensive and you will have peace of mind. I think you have a total rebuild on hand. Sterkte and enjoy the project.

[grostek]

Hi KFA,

The reason I suggested that the fabric be stripped off one component at a time is so that you dont have too much wood and splinters lying around. It makes it easier to rebuild a wooden part if you dont have to guess what piece of wood fitted where .

If all fabric gets stripped off the whole aircraft at the same time, you will have lots of wood and after 2 hours not know where it came from ie what part of the airframe.

I am not suggesting to save the fabric, just trying to outline a progressive rebuild method, that cuts down on the posibility of errors later.

Steel tube fuselages would be bend and buckled after an accident and have the odd weld broken but you would not have pieces of steel falling off after stripping the fabric off so there your method is fine.

My mistake for not being clearer in the original post.

Kind regards,

Gunter Rostek.

[Greenman]

I'd rather strip and fix one at a time so as not to be discouraged if I see the damage all at the same time. Might get a heart attack before I start. No seriously, I'd have a better feeling if the parts stay together untill such time as I am ready financially and mentally for the challenge ahead. I always used to strip something and only fix it a year later. Usually by then half the spares are lost. This once I would like to do it right the first time. Will visit a couple of building projects in the meantime.
Regards
Chris

[grostek]

Hi Greenman

Have dug around and found the bible of wood repairs.

You can down load it at the link below

http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/oIh_SB0WLO ... er%201.pdf

Kind regards,

Gunter Rostek.