My RV will have an ECI XIO-360 from America's Aircraft Engines, with an Airflow Performance fuel injection system and an e-Mag/p-Mag electronic ignition system. My prop will be a three blade composite from Catto Props.
Total Construction Time: 103 hours and counting
July 20, 2008 (1 hour)
After I finished with the side skirts on my canopy, I went ahead and drilled my engine mount to my firewall. I supported it on a small box. Once I was happy with the position of the four corners I ran some long clamps from the lower two corners back along the outside of the fuselage to the spars. It seemed secure so I then drilled one at a time, using lots of oil on my drill bit. When I was done with each corner I went ahead and also drilled the two bottom ones where the nose gear mounts.
July 21, 2008 (1 hour)
This evening I pulled out the gear legs, wheels, brake kits, and tires. I mostly studied the parts to try and understand how they all fit together.
August 10, 2008 (1 hour)
My engine should be arriving this week. Spent some time trying to pick the best firewall penetration location for my fuel line. I also drilled and bolted the sender mount to the firewall.
August 11, 2008 (2 hours)
Deburred the brackets that will attach the wheel fairings to the gear.
August 12, 2008 (2 hours)
I realized I needed to drill and cut away some of the two main gear brackets where Van's left some material to be able to make the bends. Then I cut the little spacers and primed the brackets and spacers.
August 13, 2008 (2 hours)
Attached the brake flanges and brake flange mounts to the gear legs, then bolted the brackets to the flange mounts. Van's drawings and instructions don't help much here, but I found some good pictures on a few other builder's sites. I also swapped the fitting and plug on one of the brakes so I have a left and a right one. Here's a picture with them complete and the brakes in their guides.
August 14, 2008 (1 hour)
My engine arrived today! I'm planning on hanging it in the next few days so I've got a bunch of stuff to do before I can do that. I slid the main wheels onto the axles and put the end nut on. You need to tighten the nut until there's no side-to-side slop in the wheels, but not too tight that it starts to add friction when you spin it. Once it's just right you need to drill a couple of holes in the axle for a cotter pin. I simply used one of my long #30 bits to start a drill hole in the axle, then took the nut off and put a cobalt bit in the drill and went the rest of the way through. I then just positioned the nut back in place and did the same on the other side of the nut. Came out pretty good. I also assembled the nose gear mount, which is a lot more straight forward than the mains.
August 15, 2008 (2 hours)
The wheel bearings don't typically come fully packed with enough grease, so I figure now is a good time to repack them. I'd never done this before, but it's pretty straightforward using the grease packing cup I bought. Hardest part was cleaning out the original grease as it's a different type and you're not supposed to mix different types. Managed to get one of the mains done.
August 16, 2008 (8 hours)
Cleaned and packed the second main gear and the nose gear. Next I coated the insides of the tires with talcum powder and added the tires and intertubes to the wheels and inflated them just a little. The mains are pretty easy, but for the nose gear I used a couple of clamps to bring the two halves almost together and then used a mirror to look inside to make that they weren't pinching the intertubes. Once everything was aligned right I bolted them up and then inflated and deflated them a few times. Afterwards I went ahead and attached them to the gear legs and added the brakes to the main gear.
August 17, 2008 (6 hours)
Had a bunch of miscellaneous tasks I had to finish before I could bolt on the engine mount. I had a few holes to drill in the firewall for the fuel line and the nose gear bolt. Next I riveted the aux. fuel pump doubler in place, which I didn't need as my engine is fuel injected, but I'm using this doubler for my fuel line bulkhead fitting. I then removed the battery box and then worked on riveting the firewall recess in place, using high-temp RTV to seal the flanges. Once that was done I put the battery box back on. Aaron then came out and helped me bolt the engine mount on and then we hooked the engine hoist to the engine mount to raise it high enough for the gear legs. Seeing the plane up on it's gear for the first time makes it look really big.
August 17, 2008 (2 hours)
This evening RV-10 builder Gary Specketer, also my tech counselor, came over and helped Aaron and I hang the engine. It took about an hour, then I realized that just before we finished add the nuts to the bolts that I hadn't added the oil pressure fitting. So off it came, we inserted the fitting, and the engine went on much faster the second time. Thanks Gary!
August 20, 2008 (1 hour)
Today I pulled the fuel injection servo out of the box and test fit it to the engine to get a better understanding of how the throttle and mixture brackets will fit.
August 21, 2008 (1 hour)
I mounted the starter ring gear and the prop extension to the front of the engine today, plus did a few miscellaneous tasks such as adding nuts to the gear mount bolts and torquing them.
August 23, 2008 (4 hours)
Spent a lot of time studying how the cowl halves fit to the firewall and around the spinner bulkhead. I also cut some 2" wide strips of 0.063" to attach to the firewall and that will serve as the mount for the camlocks I'm using to attach the cowl. Aaron worked on making some rings for my pushrod boots.
August 24, 2008 (4 hours)
I finally settled on a spacing for the camlocks so I went ahead and drilled one of the support strips across the top of the firewall. Once I had laid out all the hole locations for the camlocks I went ahead and drilled the cowl to the support strips. I ended up with a really nice fit along the firewall, but the front of the cowl is going to need a little work to get a consistent gap to the spinner bulkhead.
September 3, 2008 (1 hour)
Did some work on the camlok support strips.
September 4, 2008 (1 hour)
Added the fittings for the oil and fuel pressure sensors, plus did a few miscellaneous tasks.
September 21, 2008 (8 hours)
Riveted the camlok receptacles for the top cowl to the support strip. Then I made the support strips for the sides and bottom of the firewall. I temporarily installed the camloks in the top cowl to hold it in place. Later I worked on fitting the lower cowl, including making the cutout for the gear leg, then trimming the bottom and aft end to length. Once I had that aligned I drilled the cowl to the support strips. The overall alignment of the two cowl halves isn't too bad, but there will definitely be some work to do around the front. Can't wait to paint over that pink.
September 22, 2008 (4 hours)
It was a really nice day so I took the afternoon off work and messed more with the cowl halves as well as the windscreen. I had a few camlock holes to drill yet. Then I went ahead and marked the lower cowl to trim it off even with the top cowl. I also spent time sanding and filing where the two halves lap behind the spinner to get a better fit. With the sides trimmed, the top halves were sticking out past the bottom half, along the front half. I finally took my heat gun, warmed up the front area, clamped between the outside and air inlet, then let it cool. This worked pretty well to get the two sides to align. I need to do lots of filling to the lower cowl in the front, but at least now I can get the hinfes installed.
September 23, 2008 (2 hours)
I'm sticking with Van's hinges to secure the cowl halves together. Cut the two hinge sections to length, then marked and drilled holes in the two pieces that will rivet to the lower cowl. I also filed a slot in the fiberglass near the front to allow the hinge pins to be inserted.
September 24, 2008 (2 hours)
Clamped the lower hinges in place then back-drilled the holes in the cowl. Once those holes were done I put the upper cowl in place and marked where all the holes in the upper hinge go and drilled them. Afterwards I pulled out the airbox and spent a little time understanding how it goes together.
September 27, 2008 (2 hours)
The gap between the cowl varies from 1/4" to about 5/8", but is supposed to be 1/4". I roughened up the surface and applied a layer of micro to build out to the right gap. I also applied a few layers of glass behind the cut I made in the cowl, and later once that had hardened I filled the cut with a mix of flox and epoxy.
September 28, 2008 (2 hours)
I sanded the area of the cowl behind the spinner then applied a layer of glass across the area I had filled. I also mixed up some micro to build out the outside corners of the lower cowl to match the upper.
October 1, 2008 (1 hour)
I sanded the micro I added in the two front corners of the cowl intakes. I found a couple spots where I needed to add a little more so I added a light layer of micro over those spots. I also added some on the left side of the top cowl right behind where the spinner goes to get to an even 1/4" all around.
October 3, 2008 (1 hour)
Did a little sanding and filling a few areas on the forward part of the cowl.
October 4, 2008 (1 hour)
Put my Catto prop on for the first time today. He makes awesome looking props. See that I only have a little more than 1/8" spinner to cowl gap on a small part of the upper cowl. Before I sand some of it back I added a bunch of layers of fiberglass on the inside of the cowl.
October 5, 2008 (2 hours)
Trimmed the gear leg slot in the lower cowl to the longer dimension they give in the plans for a 3-blade prop so you can drop it straight down a little further to miss the prop when taking it off. I also spent some time checking how the airbox fits and trimmed some of the length off the front per the plans. I also added a few more layers of fiberglass to the inside of the cowl over where I had yesterday. Now there should be plenty of thickness there.
October 6, 2008 (1 hour)
Pulled out the baffle kit and assembled and match drilled the front ramp sections. Looks like I might need to do a little work to get them to fit better.
October 7, 2008 (2 hours)
Added a few layers of fiberglass behind the spinner area on the right side of the top cowl where I need to sand it back to get to a 1/4" gap.
October 8, 2008 (2 hours)
Did some trimming of the fiberglass I had added yesterday to get the two cowl halves to fit together, then did some sanding of the front face of the cowl to get closer to the 1/4" cowl to spinner gap.
October 18, 2008 (6 hours)
Sanded a little more off part of the top cowl behind the spinner where the gap was only about 3/16". Then I cleaned the cowl halves, sanded them and added a coat of epoxy thinned with acetone to all the surfaces to fill some of the pinholes and seal up the fiberglass.
October 19, 2008 (5 hours)
Did some sanding of the epoxy coat, which took a very long time. Aaron helped me trim some of the forward spinner bulkhead flanges to fit around the prop blades.
October 23, 2008 (2 hours)
Spent a little time sanding the empennage tips and fitting the tail light.
October 24, 2008 (2 hours)
Did a little more work on the tail light mount and also epoxied and riveted the ribs inside the wingtips.
October 27, 2008 (2 hours)
Countersunk the rivet holes in the cowl halves where the hinges attach, then epoxied and riveted the hinges.
October 28, 2008 (2 hours)
Added a micro skim coat to the cowl halves primarily around the front where there's a few surface imperfections. It's getting pretty cool in the garage so I'm needing to take the parts inside the house so the epoxy cures.
October 29, 2008 (2 hours)
More sanding - this evening it was the skim coats I applied to the cowl halves. Not sure sanding will ever be done.
November 1, 2008 (8 hours)
Today I spent a bunch of time working on the cowls. I put the two halves on the plane, with some tape covering up areas I didn't want to bond together, then applied micro along the sides over the hinge line and rivets, and also to fill the narrow gaps around the front area as well. After it had set up some I took my exact knife along the joints to get a nice even line between the two halves and minimize how much they stuck together. After it cured for another hour or so I pulled the cowl halves back off, which had I waited much longer they might have been permanently stuck in place. I also riveted the rudder bottom fairing in place and added micro over the rivets and also over the rudder and vertical stablilizer top fairings.
November 2, 2008 (4 hours)
Spent the morning sanding the areas of the cowl I had built up yesterday. I'm now very close to finished with these.
For those following my progress, I'm jumping around a lot, including work on the Upper Fuselage & Cabin as well as the Electrical System.