Tonight I finished deburring roll bar parts, then cleaned them all in preparation for priming. Hoping to prime parts tomorrow.
Roll bar deburring
Roll bar deburring
Tonight I found all of the roll bar parts, and separated the pieces which needed separating, then deburring them. I couldn’t help clecoing on one side of the roll bar to see how it looked. It adds a new dimension to the fuselage, and somehow puts the whole cockpit into perspective.
Control sticks
Tonight I installed the stick bases into the fuselage, then the sticks, and then adjusted the travel and spacing to finish the stick rigging steps. The access was a little tight for these components, but not as bad as I feared. The most time consuming part was carefully sanding and filing the stick stops so that both sticks contacted the stops simultaneously, both fore and aft. I used a small file, and some strips of Emory cloth, to carefully and gradually adjust the stops until both sticks were touching the stops at the same time. Both were right in the middle of the acceptable range of travel. It feels good to have gotten this far! One more chapter and then I’m done with the fuselage kit!
Control stick bases
Tonight I drilled the control stick bases. This was quite easy once I found a level surface. I found the superglue didn’t bond well to the steel, so my initial match drilling of the bolt holes was not ideal. Still, everything came out well within an acceptable margin of error.
Autopilot pitch servo install
Tonight I installed the autopilot pitch servo. This was fairly easy, although it was a bit of a stretch at times to reach the back side of the servo to get bolts installed and torqued.
Thanks fully everything installed easily, and I was able to route the wiring easily, cinching down the zip ties too.
Installed elevator bellcrank assembly
Tonight I installed the bellcrank into the fuselage, and connected the pushrods to the idler brackets. I was relieved to discover that the idler bracket still swung freely and no more sanding was needed.
Elevator bellcrank assembly
Tonight I assembled the bellcrank and pitch servo bracket. Everything was straightforward except the mounting of the two angles onto the bell crank plate. The alignment of the bolts took some negotiating, but after a few attempts, I was able to get it installed and torqued.
Installing pushrods
Tonight I final torqued the pushrod jam nuts, and then installed the first pushrod into the fuselage.
Before I final torqued the jam nuts, I made a simple measuring device to ensure I had the right dimensions on the pushrods. I installed a temporary bolt into a length of wood, and using this to pin down one end of the pushrod, measured the center of the hole at the other end. This seemed to work well, and after a few minor adjustments I torqued down the jam nuts and marked with torque seal.
Installing the first pushrod into the fuselage turned out to be harder than I imagined. It gets fed through from the bulkhead at the back of the baggage compartment, which is easy, but getting final torque on the nut was really hard due to the limited access. It took an hour just to get the one nut torqued correctly.
Primed elevator control parts
Tonight I found the rest of the elevator control parts, drilled, cut, deburred and primed them all. One of the parts has an optional lightening hole, I drilled it out, but only to 1 inch diameter, as I don’t have a 1 1/4 inch step drill. I don’t think that matters, but will find out later!
I also located the elevator autopilot kit, and will install the motor at the same time as I install the rest of these parts.
Finished elevator pushrods
Tonight I finished assembling the elevator pushrods. This was a case of lightly sanding down the primer and installing the caps in the end of the tubes and riveting them together. This ended up being time consuming, but not very difficult. Once these get primed on the outside, they will be finished and ready to had the rod end bearings installed.
