dondday wrote:
Assuming you have several screws holding the bottom of the seal to the wing, taking those screws out without loosening the tension at rear of seal will likely damage the hold down screw and holes at bottom of wing as screw are being removed. Loosen the tension first.
When it comes to wing gap seals, regardless of what type of wings a Thorp has, being standard or "C", gap seals vary in configuration and attachment. I've seen seals at the "D" section only and seen some which go from trailing bottom edge to trailing top edge. On those equipped with seal all the way around, the assembly should have no less than two screws at bottom where the seal is even with the back edge of the skin and when wrapped around, a long screw or bolt (AN, MS, NAS type) with long or all thread is used to reach nutplate in bracket at rear of seal to provide the required tension to the seal.
Sorry Don... with that kind of a full wrap-around cover, like I have, the bottom screws are installed first, then the tension bolt has to be tightened to align the screw holes on the top, followed by installing the top screws. The process is reversed to remove the cover - i.e., the top screws are removed first before relieving the "tension". Relieving the tension on the "tension bolt" first would result in extra wear & tear on those top screw assemblies. As you so clearly pointed out, there are many different ways that builders come up with to accomplish the task, and in re-reading the original post/question, it seems clear to me that your advice was exactly right. I'm going back to hide in my cave again now.