May 20, 2023     Wings on and wired - (50 hours)       Category: Instrument Panel

Quite a bit has happened since moving to the airport. Got the wings on, took about 3 hours. Surprisingly easy to do. Using dry ice to reduce the bolts diameters helped get them in and with every bolt it seemed to get a little easier.

Once I got the wings on I started to connect the rest of the wiring harnesses. Starting from the back and then to the front I made sure everything worked. The wing root had a lot of mismatched wires and so I was grateful that I labeled all the wires making it easier to piece together the puzzle of “what wire goes where”.

After several days of working 2 or 3 hours I powered Jt all up and checked all my connections. Everything worked perfectly except the flap motor is backwards, so I just need to reverse those pins.

  Mar 01, 2023     JD Air Latch - (13 hours)       Category: Instrument Panel

I finally decided to add the JD Air canopy latch. I found out it was only $130 and a small amount of metal work (the parts you use are 100% compatible with the ones from before). This, combined with my decision to go with Classic Aero for my interior made the decision come to a head.

Start off by drilling out the BOTTOM BRACKET only. You can leave the top one in place. Then you align the template for cutting using the existing slit as a guid and trying to match the edges with the edges of the holes. The dimples from the previous holes on the corners are the only part that require a little finessing and in the end you will have a very tiny gap should you elect to remove the hole completely (which I did). I am talking only 1mm though so you won't notice it. Better to have the edge clean and straight.

After that you install the mount and match drill the bottom bracket. Rivet the bottom bracket to the skin and install the hardware. I was very please how easy this task was. Only 3 hours from start to finish.

  Jan 08, 2023     More Wiring - (280 hours)       Category: Instrument Panel

One of the big decisions I have made is to install the Lemo jacks for the BoseA20 headsets. The advantage of using the 6-pin “Lemo” jack instead of the standard 2-plug mic-phone jacks is that you can get power for your noise cancellation without having to rely on batteries. This may cause additional strain on your system but should not be enough to deter the change. What will be a significant change will be swapping out the connection on both of headsets as it costs an additional $300 per headset.

In addition to this I have had to acquire a lot more miles connectors that came with my vans kits. Specifically I needed to look up the correct amperage for the flap motor which takes a lot of juice and you really don't want to lose that in flight (although not the end of the world I suppose). In addition I have several wire segments left to connect between the baggage area bulkhead and the panel as much of that does not connect all the way.

Lastly one of the things I need to research on now are the transducers. I am not sure what type of connections to make and I am thinking of just making spade connectors for the three wires.

  Jan 03, 2023     Panel Installed - (285 hours)       Category: Instrument Panel

This post is long overdue. I spent so many hours on this panel and figuring everything out that you may want to watch this video I have made instead of reading all this. However, the key points are below:

1) Before I installed my panel I added a firewall blanket to help reduce the noise from the engine compartment. This was a difficult job but would be a lot more difficult after the instal so it had to be done now.

2) The panel I purchased from Aerotronics came with most of the wiring harness completed and the panel fully installed. I had to completely detach the pilot side of the panel in order to route the wire harnesses through the sub panel bulkheads and then reattach. The most tedious portion of this was disconnecting the rocker switches but when it was all done the panel fit like a glove.

3) I did not know where to instal the battery backup so I decided to use the span of the “glove box” behind the passenger side panel but the connection for this doesn't not have room without routing through the lightning hole where the canopy frame is so I actually reversed this and now the battery backup is installed aft of the sub panel bulkhead.

4) The transponder location was sorta difficult and for now I have elected to use the frame that holds the pitch servo. These parts are borrowed from the RV10 and hold the battery and thus give the name “battery angles” and so it seemed logical that this could house the transponder. The GTX45R states that the “transponder should be mounted so that the blue tooth Antenna is pointed towards the panel for optimum use” and this right now might be a problem. However, I am hoping that the proximity and fact that it's slightly off center and so not pointing at but still able to reach the panel shojld be good enough to transmit. Not sure how important the blue tooth capability is for this model but this might require me to located the transponder in another location when it comes time to test.

5) I ended up using only 3 of the 12 wires from the vans tail kit wiring harness (the only ones left to be used were for the nav/strobe). In the future I would advise to people not to use the vans wiring harnesses as they are not really built for the Garmin system.

6) For the center stack I had to swap the GTN650 Navigatioj unit with the audio panel because the depth of this unit was so long that it ran into them the bottom of the bulkhead. Even after switching it with the much shorter audio panel, I had to trim about 1 inch of material from the bulkhead but checked with Van's and they told me that was totally fine structurally so long as I did not cut the bottom part of the bulkhead.

Note: I also discovered a leak in one of my brake fittings and had to remove and reinstall with permatex. I had used something else recommended by a friend and now all my fittings have permatex #2 on them.