This was a big couple weeks for me. Obviously the engine install was a huge deal. I got a flight in a friends RV14 before I borrowed his hoist and he gave me some good tips. Having never worked on an engine, I had to wait for my mentor to be come over. This was definitely a 2 person job.
Once we got all the Barry mount cushions in the correct order with the washers in the right orientation (top and bottom are actually opposite each other) we set out everything and hoisted the engine. It was super exciting to get the engine up. The foam around the engine from the Lycoming box/crate was incredibly difficult to remove. We ended up cutting little chunks off with a saw and then gently peeling them off until we were close enough to the engine to pull the rest off by hand. Eventually we got it all clear.
We installed the first bolt in a manner of minutes. No surprise there. The second bolt took us quite a bit longer. We elected to get both top bolts in first, not sure if that was the right decision as in order to get the bottom cushions installed I had to lift the front of the engine while my mentor installed the cushions. Then we went yo aligning the holes. This was a very long exercise in patience. We did a lot of experimenting with slightly adjustments up and down, slight jiggles with our hands and some love taps with a rubber mallet. We did use a center alignment tool for the holes that made it a lot easier to get the bolt holes generally aligned, but it still took a lot of patience and small adjustments and eventually we got the bolt in. Once the third bolt was through the fourth bolt went in quite easily, maybe just 10 minutes of fiddling. We may have gotten lucky but we were not complaining. We got them all in and torqued them all so that our engine was now holding the tail up so I could remove the supporting saw horse and pads that the tailcone was resting on.
We did install a nuts as we installed each bolt just a few threads. But the final bolts we used the nuts to pull the bolt through. Then we were able to get them all fully installed and relaxed the engine hoist and put it away.
After that I went on to install a ton of clamps and hoses and set myself up for the coming wiring and baffles. I also installed the cooling flap that was pretty easy to make.