Month: February 2019

It’s been cold and I live far away from the airplane, but progress continues. After 4 years I have also apparently run out of clever titles. Maybe next time.

So here is the update blast.

The wing is rigged. I need to verify that the rigging is still correct once I torque the wing connections. Rigging the flaps was relatively easy and all that is left in that system is painting the exit covers after trimming them for the jury strut. I started to rig the ailerons, but I haven’t adjusted the cable tension and therefore have to wait on that. Once I get the ailerons rigged, the plane as a whole can be considered rigged unless something makes itself known during flight test.

In other wing news, I trimmed and fitted the flap gap seals that bridge the gap between the wing trailing edge and the flap leading edge. I moved them to be about 1/16″ higher than the top of the flap hinge to allow easier access to the flap hinge bolts and avoid trimming the entire length of the gap seal. It was a little sad to drill holes into the aft spar, but progress waits for no one (it only waits on complicated ideas from my brain that take time away from actually building).

For the lubrication system I finally figured out some hose routing that I was satisfied with and I seem to have avoided buying any other hoses. I did use two 45 degree adapters at the oil pump housing to allow a better route for the hose. So the oil hoses are installed now and the bolts have been safety wired. I will have to remove one hose to add some oil to the cooler initially, but no big deal. All that is left for this is to add oil and pressurize it to make sure it gets where it needs to go. I also installed a cooling fan to the oil cooler to increase the cooling capability. Some other S-20 builders have had oil temp issues and they have solved them in various ways, so we shall see if my install is any good shortly. 🙂

I redid the coolant hoses this past weekend, because I didn’t like all the worm gear hose clamps I used. I changed most of them to Oetiker stepless clamps and then used self tensioning Oetiker spring clamps for the removable sections. It looks much better. I also used the stepless ear clamps on some of the fuel lines I had not already assembled.

On the fuel side, I am waiting on some new hose clamps to secure the header tank. Once this is done I just need to do a final check of all the fittings. I am also installing some aluminum heat shielding to the fuel hose that goes from the gascolator to the fuel pump. It passes awfully close to the muffler and I don’t want the fuel getting too hot.

I have added some header wrap and aluminum heat shield to various parts of the exhaust system to try and help protect some components in the cowling. Time will tell how that works. The exhaust system is completely installed and the exhaust nuts have been torqued.

I have some minor wiring left to do. This involves the wires to the starter. I hope to complete this in the next few weeks.

I installed the throttle and choke cables. The only control cable not installed is the parking brake, which I am planning to do this weekend.

Looking ahead to this weekend, I am planning to install the jury struts, final install the fuel system, finalize hose positions forward of the firewall, start to fit the interior, bleed the brakes, and maybe start some fuel system tests.

(30 h)