Tonight I switched out the Dynon roll servo and replaced it with a Garmin unit. Originally I had thought I would install a Dynon panel and system, but decided to switch to Garmin. Replacing the roll servo was a job that had been on the to-do list for a long time.
Aside from a couple of different bits of hardware, the units use the same parts. It was fairly easy to do, after finding the right way to get tools on nuts and bolts in the confined space.
Tonight I ran the wiring for the smoke system. I’m not planning to install it until after the aircraft is flying, but I’m installing the wiring now.
From the panel, the pump power wire runs down the center channel and exits at the flap motor. I’ve coiled and secured the wiring inside the flap motor housing for now.
The relay is mounted behind the panel.
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.
Today we finished the fitting of the top and bottom cowls, and located and drilled the hinges on both the top and bottom cowls.
The only real issue we ran into was on the bottom cowl. On the left side of the cowling the honeycomb material was too far aft, and caused interference with the hinge. We carefully bent the hinge to conform to the shape, and will use some epoxy filler to fill any void between the hinge and the cowling.
Today I worked on tidying up the wiring runs from the aft of the fuselage to the cockpit. I started by zip tying the antenna cables, and the baggage light, and inserting the C1036 and C1037 wires. I went back later and added some wrap-around cable protection in the areas where the wiring could run on rivet ship heads.
With the aft fuselage wrapped up, I worked on the wiring in the tunnel within the baggage compartment. Zip ties and spiral wrap were used liberally. Main concerns were ensuing nothing can contact the control rod, and protecting the wire bundles from chaffing on the lightening hole edges.
Yesterday, and again today we spent time adjusting the cowling. With the top cowl just about perfect, we marked out and drilled holes in the firewall-side top cowl hinges. Then we installed the bottom cowl and used a strap to hold it in place while drilling holes in the air inlets.
With the aircraft outside, we took the opportunity to test the lights and other systems. I tested the landing lights, taxi lights, navigation lights, strobe lights, wig-wag function, magnetometer, satellite reception, canopy fans, canopy flood light, comm radios, and GPS receivers.
There were some issues with the lighting which I’ll need to investigate and fix: one row of red nav LED lights were intermittent, the wing tip strobe lights were weak, and the right side, leading-edge, landing lights were in-op.
Aside from that, everything else worked as expected.
In order to test everything I made a wiring harness that was 7 feet long and allowed me to connect the wing lighting from both wings while they remained in the wing cradle. I positioned a couple of workbenches behind the fuselage so I could plug in the tail light, and the wingtip lights. It’s possible the extra 7 feet of wiring had an adverse effect on the lighting voltage, contributing to some of the problems, but I didn’t attempt to troubleshoot.
Today I installed the canopy guide pins, which are designed to stop the canopy from expanding at higher airspeeds (something that apparently happened on the demo aircraft).
I started by installing the pins on the canopy. Then, with help from mum and dad, we wheeled the plane outside and were able to install the canopy. From there, the pin position is marked on the canopy rail, holes are drilled, and a plate is riveted onto three top of the canopy rail.
It was unexpectedly difficult to fit the canopy onto the aircraft. The last time I did this, I did it by myself without trouble. But that was when the fuselage was on a rotisserie, and before I installed the remote canopy release. With the aircraft on wheels, the canopy has to be lifted higher off the ground, and because it’s a tail dragger, the angle is a little different. What really got annoying was that, unbeknownst to me, the remote canopy release handle kept rotating and catching on the edge of the bracket. I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t get the hinge pins to insert, and assumed an alignment issue, but in actual fact the release handle was just getting caught and stopping the pins from being inserted. Luckily we had enough hands from people helping to figure it out.
I borrowed some playdough from the kid’s stash and marked the point where the pins contacted the rail. Then, following the instructions, used the paper template to locate the rivet holes, drilled everything, and riveted the plates into position.
When it came to time to test everything, the next unexpected issue occurred. I hadn’t installed the canopy since installing the seals, and consequently, the canopy wouldn’t close. After carefully checking that we didn’t have any other interference issue, I used some clamps around the roll-bar to compress the seals, until the locking pins could be driven home. Leaving the canopy closed for a few hours and sitting in the warm sun seemed to help the situation, and later in the day the canopy could be opened and closed fairly easily.
The canopy handle is quite flimsy, and if I was doing this again, I’d look seriously at switching to one of the 3rd party handles that are much more solid.
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.
Today my Dad and I worked on fitting the cowling.
The first step was getting the top cowl firewall attach hinges to fit nicely. The instructions call for filing the corners of the eyelets on the firewall to allow the cowl-side eyelets to fit nicely in the area where the hinge curves from the top to the side. Then some fluting is needed on the cowl side to ensure a consistent curvature.
With a nice alignment of hinges, we moved onto trimming the cowling. There is a scribe line that shows where the cuts should be made, but it’s important to go through an iterative process of fitting and adjusting, since the scribe line is more of a guide, and certainly not exact. The cowling went on and off many times while dad carefully trimmed away to get a perfect fit.
The prop needs to go on before we can finalize the fitting of the cowling, but the majority of the trimming work was completed today.
