Today was a house project/family day. We have a huge maple tree in our backyard that takes a few hours every fall with leaf clean up.
I did manage to prep and paint the bracket I made for the parking brake and the underside of the rudder cable fairings.
I used some RTV to glue some screen material inside the NACA vents. You won’t be able to see this at all from the outside once they are installed.
I also followed the instructions/plans and drilled out 3 rivets on the firewall, enlarged them to #12 and installed nut plates. These holes are for clamps that hold the oil pressure hose and breather tube. I went ahead and just temporarily/loosely attached the oil pressure hose.
Since the main wheels were fairly easy, I decided to make it a complete and do the nose wheel. That guy is not nearly as easy to assemble. The tube really wants to get in between the wheel halves and the tire is a very tight fit. I squeezed the halves together just enough to get the nut started. I then pushed the tube out of the way from the inside of the wheel using various blunt instruments, and then tightened down the bolts. I slowly inflated and deflated the tire a few times. Since the bolts holding all the wheels together are AN4, I torqued them to 70 in-lb and put on some torque seal.
Not wanting to start something new, I pulled out the firewall forward instructions and highlighted the things that I needed to do. Much to my surprise, the instructions are actually fairly helpful. I had already done quite a few things, so I marked those off. I hunted around through all the various instruction sheets and found instructions for the engine mount and wheels! Luckily, I put the wheels together correctly. The instructions even mention putting the stem next to the red dot on the tire. Turns out the main wheels actually have an instruction sheet as well that call out a 90 in-lb torque for the bolts. I re-torqued and marked those.
I wanted an easy, self-contained task, so I assembled the main wheels. The first one took a while to figure out, but the second took all of 10 minutes. I used talc on the tubes, tossed the washer and nuts that were on the tube stem (according to a post I found), and lined up the stem with the red dot on the tire. Pretty easy.
I finished up work on the parking brake mount, dimpling the new holes in the firewall and veryifying everything fit correctly. Now I just need to paint it and rivet it in.
I worked a bit more on the parking brake mount, laying out holes, drilling, and countersinking. I now just need to dimple the new holes in the firewall and rivet it in place. I think it’s going to work really slick.
It’s amazing how one little thing, in this case adding a parking brake, can add so much time. Just fabricating the new bracket has taken a couple of hours. I look at all of the parts in the kit and appreciate all the time that went into designing each one.
It rained the entire day, giving me the perfect excuse to spend a bunch of time on the plane. I rearranged the garage a bit to make more room. With Julie’s car outside for the winter, I could stretch out a bit. Plus I’d like to do the fairing on the front of the canopy, and of course the engine will be arriving in a few weeks. Both of those will take up a bunch of room.
Another purpose for the extra room was so I could install the external steps without tripping over them too much. I bolted and clecoed them in place for now.
I’ll give that a few days just to make sure it’s not super annoying. After that I’ll have Julie help me rivet them in place. I bought two rubber dog play balls a while back and put them over the steps to cushion the shins if I do run into them. Leo was not happy about the plane using toys that he wanted.
I moved on to another item that’s been on my list for a while, the brake lines. It’s not strictly on the firewall or baggage floor priority lists, but it would be much harder to do with the engine mount in place.
I just following the plans and hooked up the reservoir to the passenger brakes, and then the passenger brakes to the pilot brakes. The new large wire cutter I bought from SteinAir worked really well for cutting the plastic lines cleanly. I used the trick mentioned in the instructions of softening up the ends of the lines with boiling water before assembly. That helped a lot for sliding the little ferrule in place. I also blew out the lines with compressed air in both directions to make sure they were clear. I read on the net about somebody that had a tiny flap inside one tube caused by the tiny brass inserts. That wouldn’t be good.
I’m not sure how tight to make the fittings. I’ll leave them finger tight for now. One line between the pilot and passenger brakes seems a little long. I’m not sure whether to bother trying to fix it or not. It doesn’t seem to be causing any problems, it just looks funny.
Since I decided to add a parking brake, I drilled out the brake line bracket that I put on the firewall months ago. I made a new bracket that will hold the valve as well as the actuation cable. I also determined which fittings I’ll need for the valve, and happened to have just enough on hand. I’m sure those fittings are used for something else, so I added them to the list for my next Van’s order.
Soccer was the theme for most of the day. Adele had her last game of the season (in which she scored a left-footed goal) and end-of-year party.
I spent a little bit of time finishing the wiring for the strobe power supply. I tied all of the grounds together and ran a wire for the switched power. I haven’t mounted the ground block or switches yet, so the forward ends of the wires are just dangling for now. The power supply is fully wired at this point.
I spent a bunch of time just thinking about the next steps. There are so many things to work on that it’s a bit overwhelming. I decided there are two primary objectives at this point, prepare the firewall for mounting the engine, and get the baggage floor installed since it’s holding up a bunch of other stuff.
I also tinkered a little bit with the panel layout. Having a 296 or 396 GPS front and center seems like a good idea. However, it might be hard to fit it around the EFIS-D100.
With three coats of tung oil on the grips, they look a little better. I wouldn’t say it’s a night and day difference.
I re-soldered the wires on the push buttons at a slight angle to make them easier to install and so that the wires wouldn’t be under pressure after installation. I pushed the switches into place, tested the function of all 3 switches, and temporarily labeled them. Hopefully they are in place for good now.
I hooked up all of the strobe wires to the power supply. That might sound easy. However, for each of the three strobes there are three conductors. Each conductor has to be stripped and then needs a pin crimped on. It’s time consuming. I also used Dan’s trick of labeling with a simple paper tag stuck under some clear shrink-wrap. It’s cheap and works excellent. I still need to tie the grounds together and run a power and ground to the power supply, but it’s almost done.