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Oil Door.

March 13, 2012 / posted in Electrical, Firewall Forward, Fuselage / No Comments

6 hours.

Yesterday and today.
Yesterday I worked on the oil door. The finish kit comes with a fiberglass version, and it’s meant to be held down with an elephant-ear Camloc fastener, but it looks like ass if you do it that way. A better alternative is the Nonstop Aviation hidden hinge kit.


It mounts the door on a sprung hinge that opens up and out of the way of the cowl. You can use the fiberglass part from the kit for the actual door, but like some others have done, I made mine out of .032 aluminum. The reason? When the fiberglass part gets heated by the engine, the pressure from the hinge trying to open will warp it. Aluminum has no such limitation.


Once the door is cut, formed and drilled, the flush-mount Camloc release latch goes on. I actually made two of these things, because I screwed up the Camloc location on the first one. No biggie. I still have half of a .032 horizontal stabilizer I’m using for stock.


When it’s all in place, it closes flush and latches properly, but getting the hole for the latch handle was kind of a bear.


When it’s open, the spring keeps it out of your way so you can check oil, remove hinge pins, etc.

Today I was doing more checks of things under the area where the top skin will go, because that’s going to have to go on soon. I spent some more time securing wires and torquing down Adel clamps. In doing so, I found that I never riveted the row on the longeron right next to where the canopy closes. They leave them open at the QB factory because the slider canopy mounts a little differently. This isn’t all that easy to deal with when the panel and other things are installed, but it’s not that bad either. All I had to do was disconnect the vent hoses so I could get hands and bucking bars up inside the channel by the longeron.

After that, I started putting the baffles back on, but didn’t get very far. I’ll do some more of that tomorrow.

[Untitled]

January 4, 2012 / posted in Electrical, Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

Here are some pics from the last couple of weeks.  I’ve recovered my server-side image processing script, so I promise more photos in the future.


This is the mess before I cleaned it all up.


Flap actuator and servo reinstalled (Yay!)


Fuel pump reinstalled, lines secured.


This is me working on the endless process of dressing cables and zip-tying everything.

Another productive day.

December 31, 2011 / posted in Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

4 hours.

Bunch of stuff happened today.  Shelley helped me get the fuel lines secured with Adel clamps, and I got the fuel pump reinstalled and wired up.  It works!   I also got the tunnel cover finished, but didn’t get to setting up the cabin heat cable.    The throttle quadrant also went back in.   It’s nice to finally see the ‘damage’ from the avionics install and wiring fiasco put right and parts that were languishing on shelves put back on the airplane.

There is no end to wiring.   I cable-wrapped the antenna  wires and worked on the GS/NAV splitter mounting.  Fortunately, there were two holes ready made for it (not really, they just coincidentally lined up).   But I stopped dead in my tracks when my cable stripper exploded.   I need a new one from Radio Shack ASAP.   But once that’s done, the avionics wiring is just about done.   Finished.  Fin.  The end.

Still have to figure out how to connect the marker beacon antenna.   It comes out of the audio panel as a single shielded wire, but it has to connect to a big, fat length of RG400.   How the hell do I do that?

It’s on again.

December 29, 2011 / posted in Electrical, Fuselage / No Comments

12 hours.

That’s today and yesterday.   Shelley helped me rivet on the cover plates to patch the holes in the hull I drilled in search of better antenna locations.  There were 3, total.  One down in the tail, one under the baggage floor, and the original one just forward of the spar under the EFIS.   Since I had her in the plane, i was able to reinstall the transponder antenna properly; I’d taken it out to see if that hole might be a suitable location for the COMM antenna.   It wasn’t.   When we got that done, I went to work on putting the pax side floor back together.  Since I had access, I was able to wrap and secure all the cables going aft under the floor, and I can still access the antenna connection under the seat floor.  After that, I spent a lot of time with cable wrap, securing all the loose wiring running down the tailcone.  I took the advice of someone on VAF, who said something along the lines of “start at the tail and work your way forward, finishing everything you can possibly finish.”   Practical matters preclude me from absolutely finishing the tail section right now, but everything else got done and done.   I torqued down the autopilot pushrod bolts (been driving me crazy for a while), and secured all the wiring of the ELT and strobe pack.  The ELT wiring got secured with a length of shrink tube around the idiot DIN connection (phone cables and stereo connectors?  WTF, ACK Technologies?)  providing NMEA GPS info to the ELT.

Alphabet soup, I know.   We airplane people love our acronyms and abbreviations.

I still have one or two loose ends: I need a special platenut to completely finish the baggage floor, but that should be here tomorrow.

Today I started seeing the end of all the disassembling necessitated by having to wire the aircraft.  I got the flap actuator and flap motor put back in, but this time wired in properly with wires secured in the tunnel.  Lo and behold, I was also able to install the flap arm covers in the baggage compartment, something that hasn’t happened since the interior was painted.    I also cable-wrapped the cables running forward of the spar past the fuel lines and locked those down with cable stays, so nothing’s rubbing on anything.

I also began work on reintegrating the control system on the sticks.   A while back, before I knew what I was doing, I overstretched my trim springs and had to get new ones.   I’ve since gotten them, and was working on getting the sticks all back in order.   I had to paint the steel connectors for the springs, so that stopped while the paint is drying.  I started futzing around with the hard fuel lines on the floor, but didn’t really get anywhere.

Tomorrow I should be able to finish the sticks and see if I can’t get the fuel lines secured (they need a couple of Adel clamps to keep them from vibrating too much) and install the fuel pump permanently.

Music, ELT, ELT-GPS done.

December 22, 2011 / posted in Electrical, Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

6 hours.

I know there’s been a dearth of pictures lately, but there isn’t a whole lot to shoot.   Mostly I’ve been cleaning up wiring.   Today is a win, though.  The ELT has been a ratbastard since I first clicked ‘Add To Cart’ at ACS in March.  After the interminable wait, I was presented with the need to run a 4-pin phone cable along my central wire bundle.   A cheesy phone cable is not the first thing I’d pick to run the remote head of a potentially life-saving device, but it’s not my call, I didn’t design it.   This phone cable connects to an audio annunciator, and from that, another cable goes to the panel-mount remote control, which lets you fire off the ELT through blood-fogged vision if it hasn’t gone off from impact and you need help Right Now.   Today’s important lesson: Use the right tool for the job.  Well, no shit, but the thought of paying $40 for a tool I’d use on this project exactly once galled me, so I didn’t buy the phone line connector crimp tool.  I should have.  I spent a good while debugging why switching the ELT to ‘ARMED’ produced no beep.  First thing was that there was no battery in the audio module.  This required a CR2-type lithium battery, which the Radio Shack down the street had, thankfully.   The other thing was that without the crimp tool, the connector on the phone cable didn’t exactly work right.   No beep, no nothing.   I had already made one run to the Shack for the battery.  Now I had to make another.   But then I remembered I needed a 3.5mm mini plug extension so I could test the music input.   With products in hand, I went home and got back to it.  Sure enough, my crap connector job on the ELT cable was the problem, so with the connector installed properly and the battery in place, switching the ELT to ‘ARMED’ gave a satisfying beep.

Before I went my 10 rounds with the ELT, I’d soldered the 3.5mm snap-in CALRAD jack to the Music 1 cable, making sure to stress-relieve it with shrink tubing.   Once I had my 3.5mm cable, I was able to hear my iPod playing back Geomatic’s “Bliss” just fine.   Some adjustment may be necessary to increase the volume on the audio panel, but that shouldn’t be a big deal.   The level is also regulated properly by the audio panel.  When a radio transmission comes in, the music mutes, then comes back up after the transmission is completed.  The only thing that bums me out about the GMA340 is that I don’t have a music on/off switch, which means I’ll have to pull the plug if I want the music to just plain go away.   Fiddling with an iPod in flight is not a good idea.

So yeah, today’s a win.   Tomorrow, I need to think about mounting the comm antenna, running the comm wire, and putting my floor back together.  Then when all this avionics BS is done, I can put my flap actuation system and control arms back in.   Maybe even seats!   Then it’s on to the wonderful land of Firewall Forward, but not before a hellacious shop cleaning.

Really? Really?

November 25, 2011 / posted in Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

4 hours.

This is actually from last sunday, but this is the first chance I’ve had to actually write it down.    Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.    I give thanks for… The fact that MGL Avionics is being unbelievably awesome about fixing my EFIS.   Again.

I finished the connections for the SP2 and SP4, wired everything up, and started cleaning up the mess behind the EFIS.   I got everything wired in and properly arranged and the whole thing went south in a big hurry.

Over the last couple of weeks, I noticed a bit of flickering across the EFIS display, and sometimes the unit would crash, with the White Screen of Death.   This is usually solved by power-cycling the unit.   Not today.   Today the WSOD came on and stayed on.   So rather than a complete and utter freakout, I just resigned myself to sending the EFIS back to MGL for any necessary repairs.   There’s still plenty to do.

New sensor wires run

November 14, 2011 / posted in Electrical, Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

4 hours.

Ran the twisted triple up the centerline for the AHRS and compass, made a new harness to connect them, and finished the harness for the AV2 backup instrument.  The antenna inside the shop still dumps RF into the EFIS with the sensors connected, which is bad.   I think it’s largely due to bounced energy off the metal stuff in the shop.   Still, this solution is less wire, and therefore less weight.  It also combines the AV2 sensor input with the Odyssey sensor input with no need for a Y-adapter, which has no place in an aircraft.

But at the end of the day I was utterly foiled.   I don’t have a screwdriver long and thin enough to reach through the access holes to unscrew the DB9 connector on the back of the compass.   So that’s going to have to wait.

 

 

Phone cables suck.

August 3, 2011 / posted in Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

2 hours.

I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to use terminated 4-conductor phone cable for the ELT’s GPS data, but they should be kicked in the groin until they pass out. First, the ends don’t fit through the pass-through holes in the bulkheads so the cable can get from behind the baggage compartment all the way up to the panel. Second, the cable provided is too short, by about 5 feet. Third, the end connectors are single-use, and taking them apart (to run the cable through bulkheads) pretty much destroys them so you can’t use them again.

After utter failure on that front, I went back to wiring the avionics stack. It’s progressing nicely. Still, Shelley commented that it looks like C-3PO had diarrhea all over the shop, indicated by this shot:

The GMA340 audio panel is a wonderful thing. Not only do I have inputs for music, 4 radios, various navigation equipment, and an antenna. I also have an altitude warning audio input. I need to do some research, but that seems like the logical place to run EFIS audio. So far I’ve got almost everything half-connected. The next step is to connect the devices together and make nice wire bundles per AC-43.13 or whatever it is. I’ll be using zip-ties, because as cool as lacing is, I want to get this done fairly quickly.

I’m about to bugger off to Vancouver for a few days for the Gathering of Geeks known as SIGGRAPH, so I’ll probably be out of the game until next Friday, but if I can get some stuff done this weekend, I will.

Doublers and other little stuff.

July 25, 2011 / posted in Firewall Forward, Fuselage / No Comments

4 hours.

Shelley, who is totally awesome, helped me out yesterday by bucking some rivets back in the tailcone. With her help, I was able to rivet the doubler plates for the ELT and marker beacon antennae, as well as install the marker beacon antenna in its permanent home. We then riveted the AHRS bracket along the bottom, which has been hanging in the breeze for weeks now, and after all that, I was able to finish the MKR antenna cable.

I also remounted the EFIS, which was stupid, because I should have taken the opportunity to install the ELT’s remote switch. Now I’ll have to swaddle the EFIS in something to keep metal chips from raining into it when I’m cutting a rectangular hole directly above it. Not a big deal, just annoying.

Finally, I replaced the upper left engine mount bolt. Back when Dave and I hung the engine, I overtorqued the living crap out of it because I hadn’t realized that my torque wrench had already clicked. You can barely feel 15 ft/lbs, and I’d only used that wrench once before, on my Buell, and the torques were way higher. It was pretty easy though. I lifted the whole kaboodle by the engine’s hoist lug, enough to get most of the weight off the wheels, popped the old bolt out, and stuck the new one in. Torqued down to 15 lbs, cotter pinned, done.

Today, I’m off to Michigan, but before that, I get to go to the post office to send my exhaust system to a gentleman in Australia. Hopefully Larry Vetterman sends me my 4-pipe system soon and I can continue the ugly process of firewall forward installation.

OK, just one more thing.

July 24, 2011 / posted in Firewall Forward, Fuselage, Panel / No Comments

2 hours.

Relabeled antenna wires, applied thread seal to brake fittings (yeah, stupid, I know, shoulda done it back when I installed the brake pedals), and installed sensor manifold fittings. Little things, you know, they add up.

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