I'm officially at that point where I'm 90% complete and have 90% of the work remaining. There's lots of miscellaneous stuff to do all over the plane before I move to the airport. I want to finish up as much of this as possible before I get it to a hangar as it's so much easier to work on it in the garage. I have a list of about 100 tasks I have to do before I'm ready to move it, including all the firewall forward stuff. I'm planning on hitting the list hard so I'm done sometime in January, followed by 2-3 months of work at the hangar before I'm ready for first flight.
Total Construction Time: 133 hours and counting
September 25, 2008 (2 hours)
Deburred the wingtip ribs and marked and drilled rivet holes in the flanges.
September 26, 2008 (2 hours)
Positioned the wingtip ribs in the wingtips and match drilled.
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.
November 1, 2008 (2 hours)
Riveted the rudder bottom fairing in place and added micro over the rivets and also over the rudder and vertical stablilizer top fairings.
Novermber 13, 2008 (1 hour)
Worked on the rudder and vertical stabilizer tips.
November 14, 2008 (1 hour)
Mounted the empennage back on the plane and shot a little of my high-build primer on the rudder and vertical stabilizer tips.
November 15, 2008 (6 hours)
Fit the empennage fairing on the tail and drilled the holes for mounting it. Got a relatively good fit, but it was about 1/8" too far forward. After I had drilled the holes I realized that it was catching on the front of the horizontal stabilizer. I used my heat gun to reshape this area a bit, but it wasn't enough. I ended up putting packing tape over the stabilizer skins then filling the slight gaps with flox. I also spent some time today adding a thin cloth layer over the rivet holes in the wingtips and did some work on the empennage tips.
November 16, 2008 (6 hours)
Today I felt like avoiding fiberglass work so I pulled out my wings. I removed the cork gaskets from the tank access covers and sealed it back up with proseal. I still hadn't added nutplates for the wing access covers, so decided to knock that out. I then got to work on drilling the mounting holes for my wingtip strobes and nav lights. I mis-drilled one hole so I batched up some flox and patched it.
November 17, 2008 (2 hours)
Spent a little time final sanding the wingtips and filed the proper hole where I had patched the day before.
November 18, 2008 (1 hour)
Did a little final sanding on the horizontal stabilizer and elevator tips.
November 22, 2008 (1 hour)
I had cut off too much of the aft part of the empennage fairing, so I beveled the cut edges, mixed up a batch of flox and added it to the fairing as it was sandwiched between a couple of taped up boards.
November 23, 2008 (3 hours)
Trimmed and sanded the empennage fairing, then primed it, wingtips and the rudder and stabilizer tips. Once the later were dry I blind-riveted them in place.
November 24, 2008 (2 hours)
Trimmed the lead elevator counterweights until they balanced nicely, then torqued the bolts.
November 26, 2008 (8 hours)
Started the morning by riveting the elevator tips in place. Next I worked on the two empennage gap covers, filing a little off the top so the rubber channel across the top fit tight to the bottom of the horizontal stabilizer skins. Once aligned right, I drilled them to the longerons and will later enlarge and tap the holes. Next I finished drilling the last few screw holes in the empennage fairing and trimmed the edges back to final size. After that I added the rod end bearings to the main elevator pushrod and bolted it to the elevator horns and bellcrank. I found I didn't have full elevator travel and decided it was because the bellcrank wasn't in a neutral position when the stick was vertical. To fix this I had to unbolt the forward elevator pushrod. While this was easy enough, getting it bolted back together with the two thin washers on each side of the end bearings took forever.
November 27, 2008 (3 hours)
Before we headed out for Thanksgiving, spent a couple of hours out in the garage. With the elevator pushrods now installed, I decided to install the autopilot pitch servo pushrod that connects to the bellcrank. I also drilled the rear canopy track holes up to #19, countersunk them, then fastened it with the screws and nyloks. After that quick pulled out the wing and empennage access covers, drilled, deburred and dimpled them. In the evening I took the last of the clear packing tape and plastic off the canopy.
November 28, 2008 (8 hours)
Kept working on all the empennage related stuff, including deburring and deburring the empennage gap covers, fabricating the rudder pedal to cable linkages, adding nutplates (until I ran out) for the access covers, riveting the forward tabs of the rudder bottom fairing to the rudder spar, bending and safety wiring a new trim tab hinge pin, shaping and drilling the rudder cable fairings, and using a reamer to upsize the bolt holes from the horizontal stabilizer to the longerons where I'm using a couple of NAS6603-10X bolts to make up for oversizing the holes when I initially drilled it. As I was doing this I removed all the empennage parts and tucked them away until I get to the airport. With snow in tomorrow's forecast, Tracy will be glad to have her car back in the garage.
December 9, 2008 (1 hour)
Worked on the plane for an our this morning before work. Decided I'd finish up a few miscellaneous tasks at the tail. I drilled out and tapped the screw holes in the longerons where the empennage fairing is attached. Then I drilled the rivet holes for the nutplates in the aft top skin.
December 14, 2008 (1 hour)
Had a little free time in the evening so I decided to knock off the last of the tail items from my list. This included riveting the nutplates for the empennage fairing to the aft top skin and the rudder cable fairings. I also added the adel clamp to the rudder cables where they come through the side skin. Finally I had a couple of rivets to finish on the access cover nutplates.
January 5, 2009 (3 hours)
Been spending quite a bit of time knocking out tasks on my engine/firewall forward to-do list. For a change I decided to start installing my comm and transponder antennas. I put the two comm antennas underneath the seats, just aft of the main spar carry-through. By the time I finished drilling all the holes, making doublers, and cleaning the primer off the inside skins to give me a better ground, it was too late to rivet the doublers.
January 6, 2009 (1 hour)
Riveted the antenna doublers and then bolted the antennas on using some stainless screws, star washers and lock nuts. I also installed the transponder antenna, although I wish I'd have moved it a little more inboard from where I put it. I can always move it later if I wish, just have to cover up the hole in the bottom skin I made. I also mailed in my registration paperwork to the FAA today.
January 11, 2009 (1 hour)
While I've mostly been working on the firewall forward stuff lately, I decided to finally finish and prime the fuel tank attach brackets on the sides of the fuselage. Aaron helped me countersink and torque the screws that go just above and below the brackets. Then I trimmed a little excess material from the angles because I had left them a little oversized for backdrilling through the fuselage. I also cut out and filed the slot for the bolt hole, then primed and final bolted them in place.
January 16, 2009 (1 hour)
Installed BNC connectors on the comm antenna wires. Also slightly enlarged the flap hex rod holes in the baggage area to the marks I had made during the summer when I had the wings on.
January 17, 2009 (1 hour)
Tom Berge and Pete Howell stopped by today to check out my plane. Got some really good feedback from them both. I also managed to get some work done on the plane, including mounting the magnetometer in the aft fuselage. I also removed the canopy rollers out of their tracks and painted them black to match the rest of the frame. I had planned on putting off the GNS430W purchase until at least a winter or two. I had planned on putting a cover plate over that tray in my panel until them, but got a good deal on a used GPS400, which gives me quite a bit of the 430 functionality while I save up for the full NAV/COM/WAAS GPS version. Haven't let the smoke out of any of the avionics so far!
January 19, 2009 (2 hours)
I wish I had drilled the bolts holes where the brake pedals attach to the bottom of the brake cylinders sometime back before I installed the panel and subpanel and had the forward top skin off. I'm getting pretty use to laying under the panel while I working on various stuff. I managed to drill all four pedals without too much trouble. Upon reassembly I noticed that three of the four brake pedals didn't return all the way forward when pressure was released. This can cause problems with releasing the fluid pressure in the brakes. I found a few places where the pedals and cylinders were binding slightly and was able to fix this.
January 19, 2009 (6 hours)
With today off as a holiday, I spent a fair amount of the day making some brackets for my headset and iPod jacks. Soldering the shielded audio wires to the jacks while sitting in the plane is a real treat. Once I was all done I was really happy to power it all up, hear some pilots overhead talking to ATC and also listen to the tunes on my iPod.
January 24, 2009 (5 hours)
Still had eight of the canopy track screws uninstalled, so I started the morning with these. It's pretty tough to get the washer and lock nut under the canopy deck and aligned with the hole, so I epoxied the washer to the nut, then used a forceps to position it, get the screw started then sneak a small box end wrench up on the nut to finish it. After that I decided to install the cotter pins on the bolts holding the rudder links, brake pedals and brake cylinders. You can't see most of the castle nuts even when you're lying under the panel, so a lot of this was by feel. I wish I'd done this all before I had put the panel ribs and forward deck on. Finally I went ahead and installed all my brake fittings and hoses I got from Bonaco. This was pretty straightforward and I'm glad I chose to do it this way rather than use Van's plastic hoses.
January 25, 2009 (6 hours)
Went out in the morning and made a little bracket to hold my ELT antenna that I riveted to the longeron. I had made some little brackets for my baggage LED lights, so I reinstalled those and used an adel clamp through it's screw to hold the top of the ELT antenna. The ELT antenna is fully inside my baggage area so I don't expect it to do much in the event of a crash. But they're stopping monitoring the 121.5 signal in a couple of weeks anyways, so the ELT is more for FAA compliance. I'll have an APRS transmitter onboard which should give far better accuracy than an ELT would anyways. I also installed the batteries into the ELT and crimped a RJ-11 jack at the end of the wire to its remote unit in the panel. Then I finished wiring up the baggage lights, which work really nicely. I took a break mid-day, but in the evening I popped back out and installed the springs which are part of the manual aileron trim.
January 26, 2009 (2 hours)
This morning before work I trimmed the fuel and vent lines that come out the sides of the fuselage and put flare fittings on the ends. I also spent some time pondering how I want to attach my fuel flow transducer, but didn't actually make much progress. In the evening I decided to get started on the last cable through the firewall, this one being for the cabin heat valve. I drilled out for the eyeball, which I think I've finally got down on the fifth one. Then I installed the control through the bracket under the panel and also drilled out for an adel clamp that will hold the cable to the firewall.
January 31, 2009 (8 hours)
I'm taking Monday and Tuesday off so I have four days in a row to knock off as much of the remaining odds and ends as I can. I'm trying to finish everything aft of the firewall that I can. I started by painting the rear baggage wall panels so I can add my 'Experimental' placard to it. I then spent all kinds of time typing up the wires right behind the baggage wall, in the tunnel under the baggage area and coming up inside the flap housing. I realized when I installed my ELT antenna I never added the antenna wire, so I pulled it through the grommets and crimped BNC connectors at each end.
February 1, 2009 (8 hours)
I started the morning by cutting out a paper template of the glareshield. Then I traced it onto the glareshield vinyl and cut that to shape. I didn't want to attempt to glue it without a second set of hands so I set it aside. Next I fabricated a little mounting strip for my LED strip map light, including painting it. My canopy rollers weren't rolling quite right. I finally realized one of the bushings was slightly short, but I had the right brass tubing to make a new one. Then I drilled the canopy roller brackets to the canopy frame. After that I made a couple of small angle pieces to attach to the aft ends of the canopy skirt to be able to lift and open the canopy easier from the outside. In the evening Tracy and I attempted to glue the glareshield covering in place, but the 3M spray adhesive is so tacky we couldn't get it in place without other areas sticking in other areas, so we put it aside to come up with another plan.
February 2, 2009 (4 hours)
In the morning I decided to try and position the glareshield in place then spray the adhesive underneath it a little area at a time. This ended up working quite well, although I made sure I covered up the canopy with tape and paper towels to make sure any overspray didn't coat the plexi. The glareshield covering came out really nice. Next I added the pinch welt along the glareshield edge. I also drilled and riveted the canopy lift angles to the side skirts. After that I went ahead and mounted the map light under the glareshield and wired it up. I'm really happy with how this came out - it lights up the interior really nice.
February 3, 2009 (8 hours)
Decided to tackle the remaining stick wiring first, including the PTT and trim wires. I was puzzled for a long time when I had two PTT and two PTT Lo wires at the pilots stick. I finally realized they were opposite ends of the same wire. I needed to run one end up the side of the fuselage and solder them to the MIC jack. I had cut these just slightly short, so I ran new wires on the pilot side as well as added them to the copilot side. While I was at it I secured the fuel tank sender wires as well as the OAT and pitot wires along with the PTT ones. With this done, I ran the ducts from the NACA air scoops to the panel vents. Finally, as I don't have the 430 yet, so my SL-30 is my primary com radio, I moved the SL-30 from the avionics bus to the essential bus for now.
February 5, 2009 (3 hours)
Still working on crossing off everything on my pre-move-to-the-airport list. I had what looked like a mess of wires behind the panel. After straightening them out I realized there were only four wires, coming from the flap position sensor and elevator trim servo, that weren't connected to anything. I drilled a hole in the aft deck and ran the trim wires through it, then crimped and inserted them into a 6-pin molex connector. Next I did the same with the copilot PTT wires, using a 2-pin molex. I had originally installed a terminal strip to one of the seat ribs to connect various wires to. In the end I only had the four wires for the position lights connected to it, so I decided to remove it altogether and just use a crimped splice to attach the four. I had wired the EFIS screen flip-flop to the pilot stick DB connector, but couldn't figure out where I had wired it to, so I used my meter and found it attached to the EMS input #1 pin, which should work just fine. Finally, I had two extra wires under the seat, unlabeled and too short to go anywhere. Using my meter I was able to finally figure out that these were for the flap position sensor. I had intended to splice these two with the same colored wires from the elevator trim servo, but must have forgotten at some point. I just need to run a could of wires from under the seat up to the EMS connector.
February 6 - February 20, 2009 (20 hours)
I had decided I'm moving my plane to the airport on February 21, so it's been a mad scramble to finish up everything I could at home. With all the time I put in I didn't to a good job tracking all the tasks day-by-day. In this time I took care of lots of misc. tasks under the panel, in the baggage area and elsewhere. I'm just lumping it all together under this one last entry to this page.