May 29, 2024     Door jams - (8 hours)       Category: Firewall

I can't believe how long some things can take. You think you'll have it wrapped up in an hour, and eight hours later you're still at it. All that I did was bend and fit the door jams, drill and secure with silver clecos, then up drill to copper clecos, apply rust inhibitor, and rivet in place. Eight hour, geez!

  May 24, 2024     Oil cooler - (2.5 hours)       Category: Firewall

Fabricated and mounted ptfe lines for the oil cooler. I also took some time off to fly the Panther. I flew from 1G5 (Medina Ohio) to KBKW ( Raleigh County - Beckley W.V.) and overflew the New River Gorge Bridge. It is the longest steel span bridge in the western hemisphere and is 800 feet above the New River. Quite a sight.

  May 20, 2024     Plenums (again) - (40 hours)       Category: Firewall

As I said in my last post, you can never do anything just once when building an airplane. In my last post I wrote about changing out the plenums. I spent considerable time fitting and mounting the second set of plenums, fabricated the air rams, glassed them in place and mounted the plenums. Once installed on the engine, I discovered that they were too tall to fit under the top cowling by about a 16th of an inch. I could no longer secure the cowling ! S#$% ! Plan C. I cut up both sets of plenums and fiberglassed the parts together to make new plenums that actually fit and will do what they are supposed to do. Neither the plenums provided by Jabiru nor the plenums provided by Zenith fit as supplied. The final product, a combination of both, fits nicely. I also added the rubber seals to the front of both plenums.

I added nutplates to the bottom cowl for securing the halves together. It is the simplest and most economical means to secure them. Plus if I decide to go to either quarter turn fasteners or the hinge method, this still leaves those options available for a later time.

I mounted the oil cooler and fabricated an aluminum shroud and added rubber seals to it as well. The shroud will need more modification. It's a bit of a tight fit.

I then finished with the final fit and bodywork of the cowling, installed the NACA vent, and fabricated an oil access door. I mounted the door using a hidden hinge from Aircraft Spruce.

I took a little time off from working on the Zenith because I want to touch up the paint on the Panther cowl. I removed the fasteners and wet sanded it. I touched up the white and pearl paints and applied 2 coats of clear. I will not count the Panther time against the Zenith build.

  May 06, 2024     Third time is the charm - (20 hours)       Category: Engine

As I learned while restoring my Ercoupe and building the Panther, with airplanes you can never get away with doing something just once. You usually have to take it apart, put it together, take it apart again, put it together again, repeat, and maybe the third time it will be finished. The same holds true with this project,

When I purchased the kit, it had two plenums. One that came with the Jabiru engine and cowling, and the generic one supplied by Zenith. It seemed to make sense to use the one that came with the engine and cowling, so that is what I originally set up. However, after fitting the cowling, I could see that the plenums would not sit low enough under the cowl inlets. I had to remove them and install the Zenith plenums. Thus another redo. On and off several times until they were trimmed and fit properly.
I also spent quite a bit of time calibrating the autopilot servos. Dynon does not do a good job of telling you what to expect during calibration and testing. During the test the servos seemed like they were making a lot of noise, and they didn't move their entire travel. ( when I installed my GRT servos they were quiet and travelled full length). After several tests I learned that the Dynon servos normally make a lot of noise and do not travel much during the test. They were working properly although they were loud.

I also began fabricating the pieces that are inserted in the plenums to force the incoming airstream over the tops of the cylinders. I first made “molds” out of aluminum and used the molds to make fiberglass parts. I will have to trim the parts tomorrow and glass them into the plenums.

  Apr 25, 2024     ADSHRS Redo and cowling - (20 hours)       Category: Fuselage

I did a bit of bodywork on the cowling. I have it roughly finished but I still need to do the finishing work on it. I still haven't decided on quarter turn fasteners (expensive) or nut plates. I am leaning towards nut plates. I decided to take a break from the bodywork on the cowling and decided to configure the ADAHRS compass. After three complete circles setting the cardinal headings, and the message “calibration failed”, I decided I needed to move the ADAHRS unit. I temporarily moved it to another location and the calibration worked on the first try. I decided to permantly mount the unit in the back of the fuselage in line with the pitch servo. I fabricated a bracket that holds the unit level in both axis (at least while on the ground). I may have to adjust its pitch after flying. Back to the bodywork.

  Apr 18, 2024     More cowling - (36 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Cowling redo. I tried the piano hinge method of attaching the lower cowl. I did this without having the glare shield in place. After many hours I had the bottom cowl perfectly aligned and fit with the piano hinges. I put the glare shield in place so that I could fit the upper cowl and that is when I discovered that I would never be able to insert or remove the hinge pin because of the overhang of the glare shield above the hinges. M#@*$+%~^��That method works well with the Viking engine setup because it uses an entirely different cowl. Oh well, plan B. Since I had already shortened the cowling, I fabricated a strip of aluminum to attach to the fuselage where the hinge was. I attached nut plates to the strip and placed another .050 strip underneath it to make the cowl lay flush with the fuselage skin. I was going to do the same thing for the top cowl but decided against it and to go with the KISS method. The top cowling will lay on top of the skin. I have the bottom cowl secured with nut plates and the left side of the top cowl secured with clecos. I'm not sure if I will use nut plates or quarter turn fasteners for the top. Once finished fitting, there is still a lot of necessary bodywork that needs to be done.

  Apr 02, 2024     Lower cowl - (4 hours)       Category: Fuselage

Started work on the lower cowl. Rough cutouts for inlets and prop spacer. Made a spacer that should put 1/4 inch clearance between cowl and spinner. Cut the aft edges within half an inch of final size. I decided to try the hinge method of mounting the lower cowl. I have never tried this method before and have never actually seen a plane that used this method. I hope I'm not making a mistake…. Formed 18 inch hinges to the shape of the fuselage. Tomorrow I will secure the hinges to the fuselage sides. ( The cowl looks crooked in the pictures - I was not holding the camera level)

  Apr 01, 2024     Pitch servo, trim potentiometer, misc - (40 hours)       Category: Avionics

Spent the better part of two weeks trying to mount the pitch servo in a satisfactory location. My first effort was to mount it in the bay directly behind the “hell hole” access hole. Although this seems to be a location that is favored by others, I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough clearance between the top of the servo and the elevator cable. Since so many others put it that location, I decided to try it, I was right. There is definitely not adequate clearance. I surmise that the people that have mounted it in that location have the bellcrank style elevator cables which raises the cable somewhat aft of the hell hole. I do not have the bellcrank style and there is no way the servo would fit without risking the cable rubbing on the servo.
I then decided to mount it in the second bay aft of the hole. Since the cable angles up towards the elevator, this allows for more clearance between the servo and the cable. After making a 0.050 backing plate, I mounted the servo the the fuselage floor.
Unfortunately, once the servo was attached to the cable, every time the control stick was moved fore or aft, it would cause the floor of the first two bays of the fuselage to “oil can”. Very much. The floor skins are only 0.20 thick. After ruling out any other locations for the servo, I fabricated brackets that secured the front and back of the servo to the longerons. The servo is now solid as a rock and I can feel confident with its location. To ease the installation of the servo in the back of the fuselage I installed an inspection panel on the pilot side of the fuselage. Installing this servo was the biggest pain in the butt I have ever run into after fifty years of restoring cars, motorcycles and airplanes. Zenith had a good design with the rod and bellcrank system. The screwed the pooch when they got rid of it.
I did the remaining small wiring jobs that were left over, such s the trim potentiometer and indicator. When I booted up the panel I notice that the fuel and oil pressure readings had a big X through them. I double checked the wiring and connections but couldn't find anything wrong. I assumed that if it were wired correctly the fuel and oil pressure would read “0”. I decided to try blowing lightly through the fuel line to see if the pressure would rise. That worked for the fuel line. It moved and when I stopped the reading went to “0”. Hopefully once there is oil pressure, that reading will work also. Other than that the wiring is complete and everything works as it should.
I also drilled and clecoed the false ribs above the doors. I just began working on fitting the lower cowl.

  Mar 06, 2024     Wiring, servos, more wiring, fuel lines and more - (85 hours)       Category: Everything

Many days have passed and much has been done. I continued with the wiring and I am to the point that the only things left to wire are the pitch servo, the trim indicator, and the flap potentiometer. I have been experimenting with locations to mount the servo, and so far I'm not thrilled with any of them. I will mount it behind the fuselage access panel, I'm just not sure how far aft. I would like to keep it close to the cg but I'm not sure I will be able to do that.

Since most of the wiring is completed, I decided I couldn't wait any longer to fire up the panel. I hooked up the battery, turned on the master and viola! nothing happened. Zilch. After about an hour of research and swapping mislabeled wires around I got the panel lit up. It looks great. All of the switches for trim, flaps, flip-flop, radios and intercom all work as expected. Whew.

With regard to the roll servo, I experimented with different mounting methods that I saw online. One method was to mount a clamp on the control rod. The problem there was that there is movement in the heim joints which causes a delay in the movement of the arm when the servo pushes on it. No bueno. Sometime I overthink things so I decided to keep it simple, and just attached it to the torque tube, between the control rods. It works great and is very simple.

I fabricated a doubler for the electric boost pump and mounted the pump. Also ran a power wire for the pump.I fabricated and ran a ptfe fuel hose from the fuel pump to the firewall. On the opposite side of the firewall I added firesleeve to the hose going from the firewall to the carb.

I fabricated a mount for the ADAHRS and mounted it to the area that will be below the baggage area. It is one of the few level spots in the plane and it is close to the center. I mounted a Skyview hub to the back side of the baggage area and ran a SV Net cable from the HDX to the hub. I fabricated 2 more Sv Net cables and ran one from the ADAHRS and from the roll servo to the hub. I will also connect the pitch servo to the hub which will leave 1 hub slot remaining. I used Dynon supplied d-subs and pins for all but one of the connector ends. I purchased the last one from Air Amazon. You secure the wires with small screws. They work pretty well but had I known how easy it is to make d-subs with the proper crimper, I would have bought more from Dynon. Barry W. turned me on to the crimper. Thanks Barry.

I wired the flap motor and the pilots control stick grip. The pilot grip can control trim (up and down), comm flip-flop and transponder ident. All were tested after firing up the panel and all work, much to my amazement.

Many little things were also accomplished but there are too many small things that take time to list them all. The pictures show most of what I accomplished.

  Feb 11, 2024     More wiring a small stuff - (25 hours)       Category: Everything

More wiring and small things that add up to a lot of time. I finished running all of the wiring to the back of the aircraft, although I still have not installed the autopilot servos. I think that the wiring is complete with the exception of the a/p servos, comm antenna wire at the radio, the trim indicator, the flap potentiometer, and the six confusing wires for the control grip. I'm sure I will discover something else to add to the list. It seems the wiring never ends. (Barry I feel your pain- you have even more than I do!). I removed the PTT and trim controls from the co-pilot stick. I didn't feel the trim was really necessary and the co-pilot PTT I moved to the panel. It looks very simple, but it took me a while to figure out where and how to run all of those wires, cables, and fuel lines through the center tunnel without interfering with the control cables, but I finally managed it. See the attached photo. I installed the last fuel line forward of the firewall as well. I don't have time to finish this post tonight, I will try to complete it tomorrow. Yes, that is blood on the center torque tube. The sweat and tears don't show….