Apr 24, 2024     Misc Fuselage - (6 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Did the final connections of the fresh air ducts for front panel and side channels. I wanted to get this done before the panel/avionics go in to ensure clearance for everything.

Began the process of filling rivets with superfill. Experimenting with a few techniques for both filling and sanding off the excess once it has dried.

Test fit the rudder before riveting the top fiberglass piece and front skin.

  Apr 20, 2024     Panel & Avionics Arrive - (1 hour)       Category: Avionics

Received the shipment from Midwest Panel Builders with the backlit panel, antennas, avionics, wiring harness, etc. Will do an inventory over the coming days, but had to unwrap the panel to take a look. This is the new flush backlit panel MWPB is offering and it looks great.

  Apr 19, 2024     Oil Cooler & Lines - (4 hours)       Category: Engine

Added the fittings and brackets to the oil cooler. Ran the oil lines from the oil tank to the cooler, cooler to oil pump, two bottom returns to oil tank. As others have noticed there was some residual oil that drains out when removing the lower plugs so I was ready with a funnel. The left side plug is better to open first as the oil will drain out of that side that has much more access for a funnel than the right side.

  Apr 15, 2024     WIndows - (10 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Continuing to work on front and rear windows. Lots of on/off cycles with windows and doing hand block sanding to get a good fit.

  Apr 09, 2024     Left Window - (2 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Started to cut the first window for the left front side door. I am using a dremel with cutoff wheel made for plastic materials. The cutting process creates an amazing amount of dust so there are several stops to clear some of the material from the dremel, etc. Taped the uncut window over the door opening and used a sharpie to mark a line that left plenty of margin on each side for the first cut. While cutting I used some large clamps to hold the window to limit the vibration when cutting. After the first big cut, made a few smaller cuts to sneak up on it so I don't accidentally overcut any side. The next few cuts will get the window down inside the door frame. Future cuts should go faster now that am getting used to working with the window material.

  Apr 07, 2024     Engine Bolts Torqued - (2.5 hours)       Category: Engine

Got the engine lift back out to take most of the weight off the bolts while doing the engine to engine mount torque process. Even though the engine has been on for a while, needed to get a clarification from the factory on torque value and whether to use oil on the threads as the instruction manual says. It didn't sound right to use oiled threads and the factory clarification is to not use any (so the instructions are incorrect).

The top two M10 bolts are simple, the bottom two bolts are difficult due to the access. I had made the needed modified wrench in the past but had to modify it more to get the final torque values done. The wrench kept slipping off with the higher torque so had to do several cycles of tool modification. It was more time modifying the tool than doing the actual bolt torque process.

  Apr 05, 2024     Doors - (25 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Over the past week have spent several days working on both the right and left door. The left door had a fairly good fit from the factory, so it was just methodically going through the steps and measuring things multiple times. To compress the door seal material, I put a strap around the front and back of the door around the fuselage and ratcheted it down (tight but not too tight). I then aligned the latch pins and adjusted until the door hooks made contact at the same time on front and back. I marked the top outline of the roller bushing with pencil against striker plate and began drilling through the bushing as a guide - ensuring it stayed centered on my mark. The left front latch hole drilled through the canopy was centered well on the channel, but I drilled the left back latch hole a little higher than I would have liked. It still works very well after all of the adjustments, but would have preferred it to be a little lower. Both of the left latch hooks capture the latch pin well and the door is tight. Unlike the instructions, I decided to reverse the direction of the latch pin through the canopy with the bolt head on the outside and used a castle nut on the inside - this was to limit the protrusion under the door seal material on the outside. The front latch hook impacted the door at the front before it opened fully, so had to notch out the fiberglass slightly so that it could open more fully.

The right door was very different in terms of fit. There was a significant twist in the door which made the bottom back kick out that you could almost stick your finger through. I did the same approach as before with strapping down the door around the fuselage to compress the door seal rubber to get the desired placement of the latch pin drill points. I pushed the plane out in the sun and covered the left canopy top, leaving the right side exposed for a few hours to get heat soaked. This allowed the slight reforming of the door to remove some of the twist to get the rear lower back gap to be cut almost in half. Once this was done, I could place the latch pin where the rear hook would really pull that part of the door downward. The right door worked out very well and closes with a good "clicking" sound as the latch pins hit the bottom of the curved seat on the hook.

For the front latches on both doors I used some washers with square centers to fit over the door handle bar stock. This got rid of the slop that existed because the square bar stock of the handle stuck out too far. These unique washers were found through the McMaster-Carr website, seems like they have everything.

I made some custom sized washers for the rear hook attachment bolts on both doors so that the back hook didn't bow out so much. The inner diameter of the washer fits over the small portion of the roller bushing that stuck out through the hook and contact the bolt head. In addition to using blue loctite, I added a locking washer to these bolts as well.

I ordered some longer P-clips for the middle of both doors so that the connector bar was not pulled down so much with the stock P-clips from the kit.

I started trimming the cover for the left door but need to finish that one and the right side one.

Tested both door locks with the keys and they work well.

  Mar 28, 2024     Center Heat Ducting - (3.5 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Decided to run the 1 inch ducting from right below the heater down the middle and stack them on top of each other so that wire bundles coming up from the center channel can get around it a little easier. Since the center channel boost pump will be replaced with the wing root boost pump solution, it left this center area free to run the heat ducting. Ordered a flat piece of 1/8 ABS plastic to create some brackets to hold the ducting in three places along the channel. The goal is to stay away from the wire bundles, rudder cable, and fuel lines to create a middle tier to run the ducting along. Added edge protection and ran ducts out the needed holes behind the main spar for connecting to the eyeball vents for rear seats. Probably 1/3 of the time at least was spent determining how I wanted to run the ducting and considerations for other parts and 2/3 doing the actual install.

  Mar 11, 2024     Parachute - (3 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Received clarification from the factory on whether it should have 1 or 2 lifting plates - they clarified it is only 1. After shortening the top tie strap, finished installing the rocket tube. Ran the parachute pull cable from the back, down the center channel and to front awaiting the panel installation. The actual rocket motor won't get installed until closer to first flight.

Because there are several things to work on inside the cabin, I decided to temporarily rivet the rear floor and seat back close out skin with a few rivets for strength. The boards I had on top of the ribs just seemed to flex them too much for my liking so adding the floor skins with boards will make it easier to move around the cabin with less concern of damaging something.

  Mar 10, 2024     Parachute - (4 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Unpacked the parachute boxes and reviewed contents/instructions.

Put the rocket tube in and fished the washers/nuts down the channel to get them on the bolts. There is some conflicting information that I had to send a question in to factory on - the manuals say there is only one Rocket Tube Lifting Plate that goes on the bottom but the Sling/Evan videos clearly point out there are two for both top and bottom. I tend think there should be two as the angle of the rocket tube seems to point too closely to the parachute box wall if the second lifting plate is not included. Awaiting clarification from factory.

Changed the support bracket for the pull cable and prepared it for routing through the fuselage. Added the needed rivnuts to the dash attachment bracket.