This is a fairly big update since I haven’t written anything down for a while.
So a quick overview of some of the progress since the last update. I worked on painting the boot cowl, rigging the flaps, installing the jury struts, installing the flap gap seals, checking out brake system, fabricating wear plates for the floorboard, fitting and trimming the interior, and finalizing/fixing some wiring.
The painting is never much to talk about since it is a sort of magical skill that never seems to be attainable. I painted the boot cowl, aileron/flap exit covers, a ton of inspection covers, the windshield hold down strip, the air vent NACA scoops, and the flap gap seal. Everything came out pretty decent. One thing in my favor was that all the parts were laid mostly flat, so it made me look better than my paint skills probably are. The items that remain to be painted is still almost too high to count, but the boot cowl put a big dent in the big parts list. The cowling and wingtips will be the last big parts. I will more than likely push off painting the cowling till I am in flight test. The main reason is in case I have to modify it during flight test.
The fuel system has been completely installed and fittings are tightened. I still need to check for leaks and test the fuel flow.
All fluid hoses forward of the firewall have been located and installed.
I added fluid to the brake system and bled the brakes. A week or two later, I noticed that the parking brake was leaking. I drained the system and ordered a rebuild kit from Matco. I haven’t rebuilt it yet, but hopefully next week so I can get the system bled and working again.
My tailwheel tire was flat for a while and I didn’t pay any attention to it. I noticed yesterday when I put air in it that it developed some cracks in the sidewall, so I will order a replacement tire prior to flight test.
I fit the interior pieces I had. I ended up buying some additional pieces that didn’t come with my plane. They were kick panels of sorts and really do a nice job at closing out the lower sides near the floorboard. This was a somewhat tedious operation of trimming, installing, trimming, and then installing again. I also trimmed and fitted the aft closeout that goes in front of the baggage compartment. That was more tedious than the first pieces. Another addition to the interior was wear plates for your heels on the floorboard. I used two 6″x24″ pieces of aluminum with some rubber edging material. They look pretty good.
Rigging the flaps was pretty straight forward. Everything was done by the manual.
The jury struts were fairly straight forward. The difference from the manual was that the aft jury strut needs to be trimmed so as to not deflect the aft lift strut. I can explain this in more detail for those who have questions. It wasn’t a big deal, but there isn’t a mention in the manual I have and the parts were already powder coated. I would also not drill the hole in the aft lift strut until you trim it and can fit it up. My jury struts have a lightening hole for superior weight savings 🙂
An interesting part of the jury strut is that there is a fairing at the aft section where the flap cable exits. Nothing too hard there, but you do need to have it ready in order to final install the jury struts.
I moved the flap gap seals about 3/16″ above the flap hinges in order to make it easier to access the flap attach bolts. This worked out ok, but I did have a few spots where the seal was too close to flap and I needed to trim it.
After convincing myself I didn’t need landing lights, I bought landing lights. I ran the initial wiring for them and will finish that up during the next work day. I am using a small off road light from Baja Designs.
I did get a good bit of work on the skylight done this past weekend. I had the help of two friends which was incredibly helpful. Doing it alone would have been annoying. The first part is to fit up the skylight ribs. Definitely helps to have more than one person. On my kit, the tabs at the aft of the skylight area that are used to attach the outer ribs, are too low. This meant we had to make some brackets and locate holes in the bracket. All I used was a piece of aluminum sheet and it worked out great. The ribs do not perfectly match the wing shape. I tried forming them some and also I helpd a little bit by compressing them from the aft part. That causes it to bow upwards which helped make the shape. The shape still wasn’t perfect, but it seems to be somewhat common and I will use some foam to fill the gap. I am also thinking about making some standoffs to make it more rigid than foam.
The next steps will be finalizing the skylight install. There are a lot of holes to drill. I need to finalize some of the wiring for the landing lights, leak test the fuel system, and start getting ready for another painting session.
The plane is really coming along and it is starting to make me think I will actually have a plane soon!
(30 h)
