Advertisement
manufacturers' engine mounts do not center the engine perfectly on the mounting rails. So we
have decided NOT to permanently glue the front pipe mount. It is a very self explaining
construction and needs to be aligned with the engine's exhaust cone.
Length wise, the pipe should stick out of the tail of the fuselage by 10-15 mm. That will give you
the position of the intake lip the engine's exhaust cone. The distance from the rear edge of
engine's exhaust cone to the beginning of the stainless thrust tube should b 25-30 mm.
Obviously, the thrust tube should be perfectly co-axial with the exhaust cone opening.
Assemble the two foam parts and the little plywood block with 30 min epoxy, and let this cure
fully. Then align the little plywood block with the single hole in the thrust tube, which is aligned to
the TOP of the airplane. So, you can mount the thrust tube to the mount with a single sheet metal
screw and then mount the rear fuselage to the front temporarily.
Note: The 4 M6 bolts are held in place with Loctite. You should not have to adjust them. IF
they get lose, re-glue them. The actual fixture of the rear fuselage to the front fuselage are
TWO M4 bolts in the top flat surface above the thrust tube, and 1 M4 bolt at the bottom tab.
Lay the engine on the two mounting rails and eye-ball from the rear that the engine is centered to
the thrust tube. If not, grind or cut a little off that single top support, or add a few mm of scrap
plywood to space it from the top fuselage wall. Once all is centered, take the tail fuselage off the
front fuselage and permanently glue the mount in the rear fuselage with 30 min epoxy.
Then screw also the engine in place. For all further installation of engine components, such as
ECU, pump, fuel lines, valves, filters, please follow the instructions of your engine's manufacturer.
In the Rebel PRO and MAX, the perfect space to install all this is on that horizontal area of that
fuselage dome right in front of the engine cutout. CG will work out fine, if batteries are planned to
be installed in the nose of the airplane - of course depending on the size/weight of the engine.
The fuel tank is installed in front of the engine. It hooks under the wing tube with a milled plywood
construction. To avoid the mount sliding sideways, a balsa block glued to the wing tube or
fuselage floor, placed between the two vertical plywood formers, will do the trick.
In the front the milled half round foam piece will be glued to the fuel tank with 30 min epoxy, in the
exact position so that it can be screwed to the tank former without gap. Glue this on while tank
and foam piece are in its place, and remove after the glue has cured. Then you can reinforce the
joint and fill the corners as you deem necessary.
The hopper tank can be either mounted on the dome, where also the other components will find
place, or in the bottom of the fuselage. In order to easily take the main tank out, we recommend
to mount the hopper tank on the dome.
Landing gear installation: The main gear mounts have holes for M5 T-Nuts. Press the T-Nuts
from the underside into the plywood mounts and then mount the retract mechanics with M5 allen
bolts.
The nose gear is supposed to be installed from the bottom into the mounting rails. For this we use
self tapping wood screws. You can widen the gear cutout in the fuselage skin in that area to
access the screws more easily, if you wish.
Make sure you tighten all grab screws well. It is not really necessary to grind flat spots to the
connection pins, except you should grind one flat spot where the grab screw of the steering
control arm is located. This is only one single grab screw and it will not hold tight without a flat
spot in that area. Installing the steering servo is straight forward, but make sure to orient the servo
that the servo wire is on the side AWAY from the retract unit, so that it will not catch the gear
frame and get pinched.
Advertisement
