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.
Over the last two days, my dad and I worked on solving two problems with the control sticks. 1. shortening the control sticks to prevent contact with the panel when full forward, and 2. modifying the passenger-side wiring to avoid interference with the structure around the stick.
When I first installed the sticks I didn’t have the panel installed, and wasn’t sure how much clearance they would have. With the panel installed, the stick grips were hitting the bevel on the bottom edge of the screens, and the flap switch. We took the sticks out, removed the grips, cut away the sleeve, shortened the stick about 1.5 inches, installed a new sleeve, then reinstalled the sticks. Of course we started with just the passenger side, got the dimensions just right, then copied for the pilot side.
On the passenger side wiring, we removed the bulky connector I had fabricated, and just went with d-sub pins isolated with heat-shrink tubing. This is the same approach as the pilot side. There is a risk of the connectors pulling apart over time, but the multiple layers of tubing will help. I’ll also be zip-tying each side of the connectors to the stick to reduce strain.
Removing the stick will still be possible, but not recommended except for maintenance.
I plan to install a switch on the passenger side ground wire so I can deactivate the stick buttons and switches as needed.
Today Dad removed the original 4 governor studs and replaced with longer versions from Lycoming. The original studs didn’t have sufficient length for the two washers that are called out in the manual.
A stud removal tool, some copper paste, and a couple of nuts were needed to remove the old studs and install the new ones. Carefully measuring the depth of the original studs helped ensure the right placement of the new ones.
With the studs in, I reinstalled the governor and final torqued the nuts.
Today I installed the FlyLED controller board and the light dimmer circuit board. These both went of the forward side of the sub panel. The mounting hardware protrudes through the sub panel, behind the vpower unit.
I uninstalled the shelf that holds the vpower box and transponder, to allow access to drill the mounting holes for both boards.
Dad made a template to mark the holes, and then we drilled them to the correct size. The plastic standoff pins for the FlyLED board worked nicely, the only tricky part was mounting the board, which I did by feel, since there’s no easy access.
With all the hardware in hand, I went ahead and installed the ELT.
Important to-do: register the ELT and do a self-test. Since I don’t have a registration number yet, I don’t think I can register the ELT, but I need to research. Testing is also something I need to research, as setting off a 406MHz ELT is not the same as the old 121.5 style which you can test in the first 5 minutes of every hour.
Tonight I finished a few small tasks and powered up the panel for the first time. No smoke or popping sounds, and everything worked exactly as expected. This felt like a significant milestone in the airplane’s life.
The prep tasks included plugging in the few remaining items (CO detector, battery, OAT), and double-checking all the wiring. I had developed a checklist to follow to ensure I didn’t miss anything critical. Then it was time to power up the ground power module, and hit the Battery switch. Note, the panel doesn’t have a Master switch, as the alternator is switched independently. (Typically the Battery plus Alternator switches make up the Master switch.)
The “thunk” of the battery contactor closing, and subsequent coming-to-life of screens and switches was awesome. Plugging in my headset and hearing the crisp and clear audio intercom and radio transmissions of aircraft was exciting and rewarding. Mostly I felt relieved that everything worked as expected, so I can move forward with tidying up the wiring and checking the various subsystems (lighting, engine monitoring, autopilot etc).
