Has anyone Installed the steel bungee from Viking Aircraft?

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Yes

Yes; The "steel bungee" is a vast improvement over the bungee cord when taxiing, and the ability to adjust the pre-load on the spring for different engine weights is another advantage. It's also  low maintenance compared to the bungee cord.

Thank you for the reply! I changed my rubber bungee to the steel bungy last night! Can’t wait to test it out! I was just curious if anyone on this forum had done it, and what it was going to involve! But I believe I got it figured out ( hopefully ). Thanks again.

I have had great results from my steel bungee, But I too have a "bought" aircraft. Built before the plans change that installs the doubler shown in Stans photo.

The area behind has cracked "imagine a line from front to rear passing thru the center of the hole". I have repaired and installed a similar doubler as shown above.

just a note to older airframes built to plans not using doubler (users must have had cracks before steel bungee design hence the reinforcement to area)

The doubler is part number 6B8-10 "Forward Gusset" on drawing 6-XB-13 of the CH601XL illustrated parts catalog.

CH601XL Illustrated Parts Catalog

I installed on my 601.  Since I have not installed the engine yet it was very easy.

I installed a steel bungee on my 801. Had to fabricate new straps, the 701 dimensions are different. Those are grade 8 bolts and couplings, rated at 7000 pounds each.

I’m installing one now. If you have a Continental powerplant, you will probably run in to this:

You will need a 12” long 1/8” and 3/8” drill bit to get the required holes drilled due to interference with the engine mount. Like this:                 

I need to clarify a couple of things on my above post. The Viking Bungee instructions call for a 21/64”, or 9 mm drill bit for the final hole size. I had a 12” long 3/8” bit, so that will work fine too. The 12” long 1/8” drill bit I mentioned is for drilling the pilot hole. Also, if it is not obvious by looking at the photos, the reason for all of this is the engine mount tubes are directly above the 2 required holes and the extra length drill bits allow you to still drill out the holes by coming in at a slight angle.

A good alternative (actually, a great alternative since it's an excuse to buy yet another tool!  Haha!) is to use a Dotco 90 degree drill:

You can get very short threaded drill bits that, coupled with the 90 degree drill, allow you to get into very tight areas.  There were several areas on my plane where a 90 degree drill was the only way you could get a true 90 degree alignment of the drill bit relative to the hole.

These are very heavy-duty, commercial quality drills ... also very expensive if purchased new!  However, they are always available used on Ebay for usually less than $100.  I also bought on Ebay several dozen resharpened threaded drill bits in a variety of sizes and lengths that were very inexpensive - and very sharp!  Worked great!

John 

N750A

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