It's been a month since I last posted, but I have been working as diligently as possible on the bird. I had a little (well, it was yuuuge) snafu at work that I have been spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with, so working on the plane has been good therapy. I hope to finish in a couple months, and there are still tons of items on my to-do list. Nevertheless, I accomplished quite a bit during the past month:
- Attached fuel lines between wing and fuselage; continued working on left lower wing root fairing
- worked on wing root fairing fit (left upper and lower) to clear fuselage by at least 0.040”; riveted root fairing stiffeners to upper left root fairing
- finished most of the wing root fairings, except for lower right; attached OAT probe; wired OAT probe (spliced to pigtail at wing root)
- finished lower right wing root fairing; RTV-attached UHMW spacers to both wing roots (using instead of proseal; will keep an eye on it when removing upper root fairings; rigged ailerons (the control stick moves like buttah); attached flaps and started rigging flaps (need to file a bit off the edge of the right flap)
- removed lower cowl and two landing light lenses; started working on landing light brackets; attached magnetometer; other misc. stuff
- worked some on landing light brackets (mostly painting); final-attached and checked canopy switch; routed and attached Pitot and AOA tubes to G3X and G5; tidied wires under panel some more; attached brake modification (thanks, Mark A. and Shane B.!) which affords a spring-return to not accidentally drag brakes
- finished attaching and wiring landing lights (AeroLED Sunspot LX); the two adel clamps were a pain, since they were on the inboard side
- fueled left tank with 20gal (no leaks so far), and started to calibrate fuel sender in G3X; added canopy latch warning from Van’s; played with G3X settings; installed and painted canopy guide pins
- drained left fuel tank, filled right tank with 20gal, calibrated both fuel senders; programmed G3X limits and calibrated aileron trim and flaps; tried to calibrate elevator trim servo, but couldn’t get a voltage reading (I’ll redo micromolex connector with D-sub pins, as recommended by Ken B.); painted seatbacks
- added 7qt of oil to engine (Aeroshell 100 mineral oil); worked on tail light wires; drained 20gal of fuel from right tank (no leaks so far!); attached seatback interior to metal painted seatbacks
- attached wingwalk pads to both wing roots, so I stop scuffing the aluminum (or slip); finished tail light wires, and tucked under rudder so I can do the fiberglass; started playing with brake bleeder, but the container won’t prime - needs new seals, or I need to buy a new pressure vessel
- bled brakes after fixing container; re-did elevator trim wiring again, this time with d-sub pins (thanks for suggestion, Ken B.!) - successful calibration
- Completed much of the right wing tip up to installing the nutplates; also started installing Archer tip antenna (for VOR/ILS)
- finished right wing tip, including nav light lens and wired nav lights (started)
- started left wing tip, finished Archer tip antenna (floxed/micro’d to inside of wing tip), finished nav lights
- finished 2/3 of left wing tip up to installing nutplates and installing wing tip rib
- sanded trailing edge of left wing tip, sanded nav light area; cut and trimmed left tip lens to size (what a pain)
There are approx. 50 pictures that follow, but unfortunately they are not in order - I'll still annotate each. Here are the seat backs, after priming and painting:
