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.
Tonight I decided where to install the standby battery and made the parts to mount it above the center channel about 3 inches aft of the firewall on the cover panel between the sets of rudder pedals. I made backing plates to reinforce the panel and to hold the nut plates.
It was a pain to work on this panel because the canopy release cable passes through behind the battery, and I can’t remove the panel without undoing work on the canopy release mechanism. So I drilled, deburred and riveted everything with the panel nearly in place, which was awkward.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been slowly refining the design and construction for the sub panel mounts on the pilot side. The two biggest boxes going in this area are the Vertical Power and Transponder unit. Originally I was planning to orient these horizontally, but when I installed the bank of switches, there isn’t enough room. So I switched the orientation to vertical. This also meant the standby battery wouldn’t fit, so that is going to move somewhere else. Tonight I finished the construction and test fit everything.
Tonight I worked on making the first mount for the sub-panel. This will house the GTR-20 remote com radio, and the GMA-245R remote audio panel.
Since my last blog post I’ve made multiple revisions to my plans for mounting the hardware. I’m reasonably happy with the final arrangement, and it’s good enough to get started building. I’m sure I’ll decide to change something else, but it’s time to get started making stuff.
Everything went according to plan, and it turned out alright. With no pre-punched or pre-formed parts the whole construction process took a lot longer.
