Tonight I worked on the front baffles, including the air ramp. Dad had already made progress drilling and deburring parts, and installing nut plates. I picked up where he left off and completed a page of steps.
More Baffling
Aft Baffling Install
Today I installed the aft baffles on the engine. I started by picking up some high temp RTV from AutoZone. The RTV is used to provided a cushion for the baffling where it will vibrate against the engine. I masked up the aft baffling, roughed it up with sandpaper, cleaned it, and then smeared RTV in the specified locations. This was then left to dry for a few hours.
Later in the day I installed the aft baffles, and looked to areas where it was rubbing against the case. I found a few locations, and marked them with a sharpie. Then I uninstalled it all, filed down the offending areas, and then reinstalled for (hopefully) the final time.
Baffling – test fit
Tonight I test fit the aft baffling on the engine.
I found a couple of rivets that I had forgotten to set, so I went ahead and tried the aft baffling on the engine, and then took it off and set those rivets.
Trying the baffling on the engine was a little tricky. The instructions say to remove the oil return line from cylinder 3 to make it easier to install the right baffle. I can see why, it definitely gets in the way. But instead of undoing the fitting, just a gentle bend as it’s going on solves the problem. The much harder issue is the aft left baffle. It took me almost 30 minutes of trial and error to finally find a way to get it in. The trick is to insert it at about 45 degrees, getting the baffle under the engine mount bolt, then working it down into position. It also helps to angle it slightly forward.
I scratched a lot of engine paint off, and scratched the baffles, but was able to get them into position.
That’s when I realized another issue. I had installed the bracket on the wrong side of the case, and the holes were not even close to lining up.
I took it all off again… will fix it tomorrow.
Baffling
Tonight I continued working on the baffling. I had to drill out a few rivets and redo them, as they had tipped over too much. I also found a mistake where I’d used the wrong nut plates, so I replaced those.
With the riveting done, I installed the fittings on the top of the engine case. These help hold the baffling in place. I had to gently bend the fuel line out of the way to ensure enough clearance from the bracket.
Baffling
Today I made some more progress on baffling, deburring, dimpling, countersinking, step drilling and then riveting together parts. It’s been I while since I needed to use the compressor, but I needed to use the rivet gun in a few places. I almost always use the Main Squeeze hand-squeezer for rivets.
Baffling
I decided to take a break from wiring, and start back on the engine. Cracking open the baffling section, I made some progress on the first few steps, marking and trimming the doublers, and deburring parts.
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.
Prop Install
Today was a major milestone day, we installed the prop! This was something I’d be holding off on, but with my parents here to help, it was a good opportunity to get it installed.
The first step is to remove the a cap which then allows oil to pass into the constant speed prop hub. There are different methods, but having never done this before I thought it was best not to drill anything, and instead try to remove it with a rod and hammer. Since I couldn’t bring myself to hammer away on the end of a very expensive engine, I let Dad do the job. His steady hand made this an easy task, although we were surprised at how much force it took to eventually pop it out.
The prop needs a couple of spinner plates mounted before it’s attached to the engine, so we followed the manual and Vans instructions to install these.
I also cleaned out the area behind the cap we removed to ensure the prop would mount cleanly.
Borrowing my neighbor’s engine hoist, and with a strap suspending the prop, we carefully hoisted, positioned and installed the prop. It only goes one way, and cannot be rotated at this time, so we had to carefully measure the clearance between the tip of the prop and the garage door, and other shelving. It fit with about 1 inch of clearance. I think I’ll find a way to put the plane into the garage nose first, which will solve the clearance issues, and maybe allow me to keep the canopy installed.
Everything went well today, and I’m stoked to have the prop on now. None of the prop bolts are final torqued, I’ll wait until I’m confident it won’t need to come off again before doing that.
Governor studs
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.
Exhaust Inventory
After being on backorder for several months the FWF Kit’s exhaust package arrived this week. The box was in rough shape, but luckily everything from the inventory was present.
I had a few extra unmarked parts which should be interesting to figure out.
