Today I coated the interior of the top cowling with a layer of resin. This helps seal the cowling and makes cleaning oil and grime easier. I mixed up the resin and brushed it on.
Cowling Work
Garmin Roll Servo
Tonight I switched out the Dynon roll servo and replaced it with a Garmin unit. Originally I had thought I would install a Dynon panel and system, but decided to switch to Garmin. Replacing the roll servo was a job that had been on the to-do list for a long time.
Aside from a couple of different bits of hardware, the units use the same parts. It was fairly easy to do, after finding the right way to get tools on nuts and bolts in the confined space.
Smoke system
Tonight I ran the wiring for the smoke system. I’m not planning to install it until after the aircraft is flying, but I’m installing the wiring now.
From the panel, the pump power wire runs down the center channel and exits at the flap motor. I’ve coiled and secured the wiring inside the flap motor housing for now.
The relay is mounted behind the panel.
Spinner
Today we trimmed the cutouts on the spinner. These allow the spinner to pass over the prop blades, and allow some space for the constant-speed prop blades to rotate.
Cowl Hinge Fitting
Today we finished the fitting of the top and bottom cowls, and located and drilled the hinges on both the top and bottom cowls.
The only real issue we ran into was on the bottom cowl. On the left side of the cowling the honeycomb material was too far aft, and caused interference with the hinge. We carefully bent the hinge to conform to the shape, and will use some epoxy filler to fill any void between the hinge and the cowling.
Fuselage Wiring
Today I worked on tidying up the wiring runs from the aft of the fuselage to the cockpit. I started by zip tying the antenna cables, and the baggage light, and inserting the C1036 and C1037 wires. I went back later and added some wrap-around cable protection in the areas where the wiring could run on rivet ship heads.
With the aft fuselage wrapped up, I worked on the wiring in the tunnel within the baggage compartment. Zip ties and spiral wrap were used liberally. Main concerns were ensuing nothing can contact the control rod, and protecting the wire bundles from chaffing on the lightening hole edges.
Cowl Fitting
Yesterday, and again today we spent time adjusting the cowling. With the top cowl just about perfect, we marked out and drilled holes in the firewall-side top cowl hinges. Then we installed the bottom cowl and used a strap to hold it in place while drilling holes in the air inlets.
Magnetometer install
Amongst other things, today I installed the magnetometer in the wing, and wired up the circular connector. I didn’t gab any photos unfortunately. There are just a couple of rivets to set in order to make the mount, then the unit screws into the mount, and the mount slides into the bracket in the wing.
Lighting Test
With the aircraft outside, we took the opportunity to test the lights and other systems. I tested the landing lights, taxi lights, navigation lights, strobe lights, wig-wag function, magnetometer, satellite reception, canopy fans, canopy flood light, comm radios, and GPS receivers.
There were some issues with the lighting which I’ll need to investigate and fix: one row of red nav LED lights were intermittent, the wing tip strobe lights were weak, and the right side, leading-edge, landing lights were in-op.
Aside from that, everything else worked as expected.
In order to test everything I made a wiring harness that was 7 feet long and allowed me to connect the wing lighting from both wings while they remained in the wing cradle. I positioned a couple of workbenches behind the fuselage so I could plug in the tail light, and the wingtip lights. It’s possible the extra 7 feet of wiring had an adverse effect on the lighting voltage, contributing to some of the problems, but I didn’t attempt to troubleshoot.
Canopy Guide Pins
Today I installed the canopy guide pins, which are designed to stop the canopy from expanding at higher airspeeds (something that apparently happened on the demo aircraft).
I started by installing the pins on the canopy. Then, with help from mum and dad, we wheeled the plane outside and were able to install the canopy. From there, the pin position is marked on the canopy rail, holes are drilled, and a plate is riveted onto three top of the canopy rail.
It was unexpectedly difficult to fit the canopy onto the aircraft. The last time I did this, I did it by myself without trouble. But that was when the fuselage was on a rotisserie, and before I installed the remote canopy release. With the aircraft on wheels, the canopy has to be lifted higher off the ground, and because it’s a tail dragger, the angle is a little different. What really got annoying was that, unbeknownst to me, the remote canopy release handle kept rotating and catching on the edge of the bracket. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get the hinge pins to insert, and assumed an alignment issue, but in actual fact the release handle was just getting caught and stopping the pins from being inserted. Luckily we had enough hands from people helping to figure it out.
I borrowed some playdough from the kid’s stash and marked the point where the pins contacted the rail. Then, following the instructions, used the paper template to locate the rivet holes, drilled everything, and riveted the plates into position.
When it came to time to test everything, the next unexpected issue occurred. I hadn’t installed the canopy since installing the seals, and consequently, the canopy wouldn’t close. After carefully checking that we didn’t have any other interference issue, I used some clamps around the roll-bar to compress the seals, until the locking pins could be driven home. Leaving the canopy closed for a few hours and sitting in the warm sun seemed to help the situation, and later in the day the canopy could be opened and closed fairly easily.
The canopy handle is quite flimsy, and if I was doing this again, I’d look seriously at switching to one of the 3rd party handles that are much more solid.
