Feb 06, 2024     33-8 thru 33-10: Baggage bulkheads - (6.0 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Need to cut the hole in the baggage bulkhead for the return air into the evaporator. Spent a lot of time just making sure the evaporator was exactly where I wanted it and clamped it in place. Then made a couple of guide marks in the template provided by the AC manufacturer to try to align the bolt. Got everything where I wanted it and taped in place. I'll go through and double check everything before cutting.

2/9: Pulled the trigger and marked the centers of the holes in the bottom bulkhead. Then drilled them to #12. They lined up perfect with the evaporator holes - so far so good. Double checked the marks for the cut out and adjusted a little bit. Then took everything apart and cut the bottom bulkhead with the oscillating tool. Came out really good and straight. Reassembled everything and checked against the evaporator - came out quite good with just a little bit of filing. Cleco'd the upper bulkhead in place over the lower as it would be in the stock plans. Something wasn't quite right though. Based on the nutplate holes in the top bulkhead from Airflow Systems, the upper bulkhead seems to want to be behind the lower. I guess this makes sense as the lower bulkhead will be coming off more often and the upper will be more cumbersome to remove. Slept on it to think about how I want it to be.

2/10: Confirmed the orientation of the bulkheads on the 3D model that Airflow systems provided. Used the original upper baggage bulkhead to match drill all of the holes in both the new bulkhead and the rear fuselage buklheads. Jumping back and forth between Van's instructions and Airflow's, I cut the two wear blocks for the seat belt cable and then match drilled them to the brackets that Airflow provided and to the upper bulkhead. Will need to wait until I can prime to finish all of these.

2/11: got the upper bulkhead cut out for the evaporator. Lot of putting on and Taking off again. Cleaned up some of the nutplates on the side panel and co firmed final routing of AC hoses. Installed the nut plates at the front of the side panel. Then drilled all the nutplates for the upper and lower bulkheads. Going to leave the top two holes in the upper bulkhead alone until I figure out the airflow routing into the overhead console - looks like there will be conflicts.

2/12: Got the nutplates all installed on the fuselage bulkhead. After almost 6 months this section is finally done.

  Feb 05, 2024     33-8: Rear bulkhead - (3.0 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Was ready to get the rear bulkhead cover drilled in place and then finally the instructions say to rivet the bottom of the center vertical support to the battery ribs. There are four rivets and they are very hard to get to. I have no idea why Van's doesn't have you do these sooner.

I had to pull out the battery tray and elevator belcrank mount. Wouldn't be too bad except for the PITA AN bolts that sit below the lip of the battery tray. And then I stripped the head of one of the #8 screws so badly I had to get the dremel out to cut a flat head slot into it. Finally got all that apart with hopes that I'd be able to get the squeezer on the rivets. Got two of them but not the other two. They're tricky and I'm not going to bother trying to get them solo.

2/6: got the wife to help me buck those last two rivets. They came out fine with a partner and a double offset rivet set. Held off on putting the battery tray back together as I'm going to take the opportunity to install a nice grounding post. Ordered some hardware from ACS.

Cleco'd the rear bulkhead in place and match drilled all the remaining holes. That's as far as I can go on this section until I get the AC return air holes cut in the bulkhead.

  Feb 04, 2024     33-5 thru 33-8: Baggage floors - (4.5 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Picked up back in the baggage floor section now that AC components are routed and everything is set. Vacuumed everything out well and wiped it all down inside as it will get closed up. Sounds or checked some of the dimples and river call outs. I'm deviating a little from the plans on what is flush vs standard rivet.

Cleco'd the baggage floor and rear seat pans in place and started the rivets. Used my pneumatic pull rivet gun and everything went pretty quickly.

Riveted my modification to the side panel and temporarily installed it with the screws.

2/5: got some more work done this evening in the baggage floors. Squeezed all the solid rivets including all the nut plates in the baggage floors and rear bulkhead. Riveted the rear baggage door triangle parts and riveted the little clip angles. Was able to screw the bulkhead in place and all the screws aligned. Almost ready to cut it for the evaporator.

  Jan 31, 2024     AC/Baggage area work - (4.0 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Hard to separate work on the AC from the baggage area. It's all moving toward the common goal which is to close out the floors.

Weather was unseasonably warm this week so actually some priming done after work. Got the various AC hose doublers and a few other miscellaneous pieces. Having trouble with gun though and the finishes turned out pretty poor. Just getting a lot of trash in the paint and gun keeps clogging up meaning ithe gun is dirty somewhere. finally found the culprit and cleaned a part of gun not mentioned in the manual, but I found some gunk. Hopefully that fixes it. Will need to sand and respray some parts.

The small doubler parts were salvageable and I installed the two fuselage former doublers as well as the tunnel doubler for the AC hoses.

Then worked a bit on the baggage access cover. It's going to be removable so I installed nutplates in the baggage floor. I also drilled the #8s for where the top attaches Into the longeron. I experimented with tapping those holes instead of nutplates, but I think I'll probably just go ahead and nutplates them.

Slowly coming together.

  Nov 20, 2023     33-4: Baggage floor redo - (5.0 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

I had primed the new baggage floor last week so this weekend I temporarily installed them so that I could match drill the door frame pieces again. Then got out the DRDT2 and dimpled all the holes in the floors. Given how difficult it will be to dimple a few of the substructure holes along the edge of the baggage floors, I'm opting to leave them as LP4 instead of CS4s. They're covered up anyways. Alternatively, there are some rivets along the edges of access panels that are called as LPs that I have dimpled for CSs.

Got the old stiffeners backriveted into the new floors and installed the access plate hardware. Short a few -6 nut plates so ordered a few from spruce. Still can't install these floor until I see what the AC install looks like.

Weather was mid 60s and the sun was out. This could be my last chance to prime for a while. So I prepped the rear floor pans and the baggage door frame parts and baggage access panels. They did not come out well. Too cold and/or too humid. Not terrible, just poor surface. I will end up sanding them a bit and repainting.

11-24: installed the missing -6 nut plates.

  Oct 24, 2023     33-4: Redo baggage floors and step access - (1.8 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Received new baggage floors and access plates, but need to harvest all of the stiffeners from the olds floors. So got to drill out about 80 rivets.

Then carefully laid out the location for the new access panels knowing what I know now. Marked and drilled the corner holes. Called it a night.

10/26: cut the access holes. I really struggle with these. On the second one, I held the dremel well short of the line and then files to the line. Came out better. They'll both be covered with carpet so not too concerned.

  Oct 08, 2023     33-2 thru 33-5: Baggage Area work - (1.5 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

I had already jumped into Section 33 a bit as I was trying to figure out the access panels for the steps; now I'm going back through from the beginning to pick up the steps that I skipped. Fabricated the hinge for the seat backs and match drilled to the floor. Then cleco'd everything in place and started fitting the baggage door frame. Match drilled the holes into the baggage floor.

Installed the F-1924B baggage floor angles and noted that they cause yet another conflict with my step access holes. It's not bad, but just another little annoyance with those. I proceeded the cleco all of the access panels in place to see if it is really going to be feasible to remove and install these cover plates. It's not easy and the whole set up is a little wonky. I've been fighting all the little things with the setup, none are a deal breaker but the summation of small things I know I won't be happy with it. I'm going to bite the bullet and order new baggage floor pans and redo it. It's $100 - lesson learned.

  Oct 07, 2023     Baggage Floor Conduits - (2.5 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

I've been messing around for weeks with planning of conduits so that I can start sealing up the baggage area. I think I finally have those figured out well enough the I can proceed. I have four conduits on each side: On the left side, I'll have the #2 battery wire in its own conduit, static line in its own with plenty of room for more later, other power feeds from the battery buss in one, and one spare. On the right side, we'll have a lot more data wires including the AP servos, pitch trim, tail light?, ELT, COM antenna, maybe even a remote transponder. I cut 4 holes in each F-1024 rear seat pans to run the conduit up into the side walls.

10/8: happy with the routing, I started securing the co suits using the one hole clips that I got from Vans. These are great except they're $2 a piece.

  Aug 26, 2023     33-4: Baggage floor work - (5.5 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Wanted to wrap up the step access panels so that meant progressing the baggage floor. Spent a little time cleaning up the openings that I had cut previously just to get them more uniform. Used the dremel with a sanding drum.

Fabricated all the baggage floor stiffeners. Fabricated the filler plates that would be needed to mate up with the access panel rings.

Then prepped and primed the baggage floor parts. Planned to use Ekoprime on everything but ran out and finished the top surface of the floor pans with Ekopoxy.

8/27: dimpled the floor pans and back-rivetted the stiffeners to the baggage floor. In trying to confirm which holes are dimpled and not, I looked at the side panel. I knew it would go over the access panels, but was thinking it was screwed in place. It gets riveted and even has a rivet in the middle of the access plate. I think I can replace that rivet with a screw and the access plates will just have to slip under the side panels. It will work. Just hope I'm actually able to get the step bolts out if I ever have to. Should have clocked them both 45 degrees.

Also found that one of the side panel rivets is coincident with a floor stiffener rivet. It's the same rivet that is coincident with the access panel backup plate. Left that rivet out for now.

  Aug 12, 2023     Step access panels - (3.0 hours)       Category: 33: Baggage Area

Jumping ahead to start thinking about access panel for the steps. Had already done some figuring of these so it was just a mattter of final locating the opening and cutting it. Realized that the stiffener would cross the access panel doubler and be a bit awkward. Solved that issue by using a filler plate below the stiffener. Trimmed the doubler plate to clear the filler plate and not conflict with the other primary rivets. Right side pretty much figured out. Need to mirror over for the left side. Won't assemble until I get to this step later.

8/20: got the left side knocked out today. Used the right floor as a template for drilling to make a perfect mirrored pair. Cut out with dremel. Results so so. It will all covered up anyways.

10/8: This was all wrong. Ordered new baggage floors and will redo.