October 18, 2006 - Rudder Cable Fairings
We have an STC to put car gas in our Citabria's O-320.  Lately, I have been wondering if the car gas I'm buying for it has ethanol in it.  EAA sells an alcohol testing kit for $15 so I ordered one. 

I tested the gas out of the 5-gallon can and sure enough, 5% alcohol.  So, I guess we'll be paying the big bucks for Avgas unless I can find a station that sells alcohol-free gas.

I hate this ethanol junk.  It's just a gimmick that the politicians are using.  It allows them to say "look what we're doing to alleviate the energy crisis" while at the same time subsidize the corn-growers.  Everything I've read about ethanol says that the net cost of producing it is greater than any oil savings.  It's a farce that will just ruin our car engines. 

I had ordered some rudder cable fairings from Avery Tools so I decided to put them on.  They probably don't make any difference in speed, but they were only $10 so I figured why not.  First I drilled holes in the fairings.   
Then I match-drilled them to the fuselage.  I made them parallel with the main longeron. 
I quickly realized there was no way I'd be able to buck rivet these puppies.  In fact, I wouldn't even be able to dimple the fuse skin, because of interference with the adel clamp and J-channel stringer.  The only option I could think of was to countersink the fairings and use flush pop-rivets.

Here are the fairings after countersinking. 

The flush pop-rivets worked great.  Fairings are done.
 
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