Oil lines and inverted system

Next, we move to the firewall foreword section. I got to say this is probably the most intimidating part of the build for me as I am completely novice in this space. Electrical stuff I can deal with but engine... never had to fiddle with ever.

 

Anyway, here it goes. Started with mounting the inverted oil components on the firewall and the engine mount. Well that was the easy part. The difficult part was getting the right hoses. I decided to get the hose pre-made from TS Flightlines. He first shipped is a bunch of hoses that we cut to the size we wanted. The hoses were shipped back. Tom at TS Flightlines then put fire sleeves and connects and we ended up high quality hoses that fit perfectly.

 

 

 

Also ended up routing the control cables for throttle, mixture and prop. Still figuring out the routing for EGT/CHT probes plus other electrical stuff.

 

 

This part of the built took pretty long (much longer than I anticipated). I think we spent more than 50 hrs just figuring stuff (trying and retrying). The attention to detail needs to quite a bit and that takes a lot of time.

Interior paint and riveting the floor boards

Both Glenn and Dennis are gone for a few weeks now. I am pretty much by myself in the shop and have started tackling a bunch of small stuff that needs to be taken care off.

 

 

First, I need to paint the interior. Instead of spraying the paint directly on the interior, I decided to pull out all the panels, floorboards seats etc. and painted them on the bench. I used the Hammered gray paint from Rustoleum. It looks pretty good for a novice painter like me. Prepping took a lot of time. All in all, I probably spent 20 hrs or so prepping / painting / uninstalling / reinstalling.

 

 

Once the floorboards were painted and dried. I decided to go ahead and rivet them. The plans make it fairly complex to move forward unless the floorboards are in place. For example, the flap rod and motor cannot be installed before the boards are in place. Pop-riveting the board was fun and it took me a little over 5 hrs to get everything in place.

 

Also decided to mount the two GPS antennas (Garmin and Dynon) in the firewall forward section. I simply ordered RV-12 antenna mounts and pop riveted them (3 hrs):

Finally, decided to replace the standard Van's tailwheel with a bell fork and a DJM lightweight tailwheel. There was some confusion about what spacers I needed to use but we sorted it out in a couple of mail exchanges (2 hrs):

Mounting the engine

Big week! Vinayak, my son was born. Ashima does not want me to post his pictures so ... Coincidentally, the engine also arrived. I am taking it as a good sign!

Here is the engine fresh of the truck and crate. Neatly wrapped by the Aerosport folks! 

 

Glenn was at it right away and quickly mounted the engine before end of the day. Amazing how an experienced helper can do the big things, such as mounting an engine so easily. If it were by myself I would have procrastinated and worried on and on.



 

Here are the obligatory photos after the engine was mounted:



It is beginning to look like an Airplane!



Running Wires

Just wrapping up the final wiring that we can do at the moment. Lots of small details, including planning wire channels for future runs when we bolt on the wings. Finishing up connecting the panel switches (5 hrs):

Now since, the antennas are mounted and the GPS/VOR is in, we finally routed and connected the RG-400 cable (2 hrs). We went back and forth between using the 90 degree and straight connectors. Ended up using the 90 as was worried about interference with the aileron pushrod.

Also ended up finalizing how the pitot and AOA tubes would come to the fuselage and how would they be routed (4 hrs).

Wiring up the panel

The avionics shipping issue has been a nightmare, with the dealer plainly refusing to honor the deal. A big setback. I finally bought a bunch of lost avionics again :(.

 

 

Anyway, we have made some progress with doing the final wiring for the panel. Installed forest of tabs just behind the actual panel. Never realized I'd require so many grounding points. Also installed a connection strip for various connections to switches etc.

 

 

 

There are a bunch of Dynon boxes that need to be mounted. The ADS-B box goes on the wall behind the panel. The ARINC module as well as EMS box is on a horizontal mount I made between the panel the rear-panel wall. Finally, the transponder and the backup battery are accessible and mounted near the gear towers. 

 

Here is the panel that was finally bolted:

 



There are many things to be done before the panel is finished. For example, still need to pull the wires from the wing and attach taxi / landing lights, pitot heat, strobe etc. This will have to wait till wings are mounted. Similarly a bunch of wiring is left for the firewall forward portion (senders, CHT and EGT etc.). All in all at least 50 hours for all this work (probably more).

Mounting on Gears, Installing Antennas

Since the engine is almost ready to be delivered, its prudent that we mount the fuse on the gear. It might make working on panel slightly difficult, but I think we have tackled quite a bit and rest we should be able to deal with.

The gear were already fitted by the previous builder, so basically our job was to bolt it on and make sure the measurements were within tolerance. Honestly, it was a pain to get the fuse on the gear. A couple of bolts are pretty inaccessible due to the design of the gear towers in the fuse. A lot of folks end up cutting those boxes, and I did wonder if we should have gone that route. But making a structural modification makes me nervous, so decided against it.

Anyway, after almost a day worth of work we got the fuse on the gear (10 hrs). The measurements looked ok, but it seems we might need a shim to get the perfect alignment. We deferred this to later in the build process.

 

 



 

Since the fuse is on the gear, the antenna (2 comm, xpndr, ADS-B) can now mounted. It took a couple of hours worth of work to rivet the double plate and bolt the antennas. Feels good to get it done!

 



Riveting Bottom Skins for the Wings

Quite bummed about the avionics loss. While we wait to sort the issue, decided to go ahead and rivet the bottom skins on the wings. The idea was that it would be good to put the wings until the final assembly, thereby making me feel a little better with some concrete progress.

 

Here is our workbench. This job is a tedious two person endeavor and it took us almost the whole day to riven the bottom skins on both the wings (10 hrs).

 

 

Here is Glenn helping with the rivets. We alternated between bucking and hitting.



Almost done! Final thing to rivet the flaps hinges. The wings go on the cradle until we are ready to mount them (possibly after everything on the fuselage is near complete).