Cowling Fitting

Posted on by Neal

Today my Dad and I worked on fitting the cowling.

The first step was getting the top cowl firewall attach hinges to fit nicely. The instructions call for filing the corners of the eyelets on the firewall to allow the cowl-side eyelets to fit nicely in the area where the hinge curves from the top to the side. Then some fluting is needed on the cowl side to ensure a consistent curvature.

With a nice alignment of hinges, we moved onto trimming the cowling. There is a scribe line that shows where the cuts should be made, but it’s important to go through an iterative process of fitting and adjusting, since the scribe line is more of a guide, and certainly not exact. The cowling went on and off many times while dad carefully trimmed away to get a perfect fit.

The prop needs to go on before we can finalize the fitting of the cowling, but the majority of the trimming work was completed today.

Dad filing the edges of the hinge eyelets
The fluting is visible here on the cowling side of the hinge. Also visible are the rounded edges of the firewall-side hinge eyelets
The initial set of cuts being made to remove excess material. We used a diamond hacksaw blade for most of the cuts, and a hacksaw blade for the tight corners
Marking the scribe lines with a sharpie to make the trimming process easier
Cutouts for the gear legs visible
The two halves being test-fit

Shortening control sticks

Posted on by Neal

Over the last two days, my dad and I worked on solving two problems with the control sticks. 1. shortening the control sticks to prevent contact with the panel when full forward, and 2. modifying the passenger-side wiring to avoid interference with the structure around the stick.

When I first installed the sticks I didn’t have the panel installed, and wasn’t sure how much clearance they would have. With the panel installed, the stick grips were hitting the bevel on the bottom edge of the screens, and the flap switch. We took the sticks out, removed the grips, cut away the sleeve, shortened the stick about 1.5 inches, installed a new sleeve, then reinstalled the sticks. Of course we started with just the passenger side, got the dimensions just right, then copied for the pilot side.

On the passenger side wiring, we removed the bulky connector I had fabricated, and just went with d-sub pins isolated with heat-shrink tubing. This is the same approach as the pilot side. There is a risk of the connectors pulling apart over time, but the multiple layers of tubing will help. I’ll also be zip-tying each side of the connectors to the stick to reduce strain.

Removing the stick will still be possible, but not recommended except for maintenance.

I plan to install a switch on the passenger side ground wire so I can deactivate the stick buttons and switches as needed.

Passenger side showing the new wiring configuration.
Full forward stick position clears the panel
Full forward stick clearance

Governor studs

Posted on by Neal

Today Dad removed the original 4 governor studs and replaced with longer versions from Lycoming. The original studs didn’t have sufficient length for the two washers that are called out in the manual.

A stud removal tool, some copper paste, and a couple of nuts were needed to remove the old studs and install the new ones. Carefully measuring the depth of the original studs helped ensure the right placement of the new ones.

With the studs in, I reinstalled the governor and final torqued the nuts.

Forward nuts torqued
After nuts torqued
Governor location.

FlyLED controller and Light dimmer

Posted on by Neal

Today I installed the FlyLED controller board and the light dimmer circuit board. These both went of the forward side of the sub panel. The mounting hardware protrudes through the sub panel, behind the vpower unit.

I uninstalled the shelf that holds the vpower box and transponder, to allow access to drill the mounting holes for both boards.

Dad made a template to mark the holes, and then we drilled them to the correct size. The plastic standoff pins for the FlyLED board worked nicely, the only tricky part was mounting the board, which I did by feel, since there’s no easy access.

After installing the boards, the 4 standoff pins are visible between the piano hinges, while in the background the two #8 screws holding the dimmer board are visible.
FlyLED board installed on the plastic standoff pins
#8 screws hold the dimmer board onto the sub panel