February 15, 2021
One week left until my inspection and so many little things to tighten up. But if feels good to have the finish line in sight. My day begin with circling back to the Vertical Stabilizer/Horizontal stabilizer fairing. I had drilled the holes but they needed to be countersunk and then the final screws installed. Knocked that out and moved on…
February 13, 2021
I bit the bullet and sanded the windshield surround fiberglass. That was a three hour project, but it looks pretty good and will certainly keep the windshield from departing the aircraft. Whew, happy to have that checked off. Then it was time for more sanding, this time sanding on the co-pilot door sill I epoxied yesterday. It turned out well,…
February 12, 2021
I finished up the co-pilot door strut. Then made some adjustments to the door lock blocks, sprayed some silicon and bam the doors open, close, and lock perfectly. Then it was on to floxing in the carbon fiber door sill. Once that was clamped down I added a nice edge and filler to the rest of the door opening and…
February 1, 2021
So yesterday I spent over an hour trying to figure out why the brakes were dragging. Today I was committed to solving this drama. I took the brakes apart again. This time I found that the bolt holding the brake assembly to the axle had an interference issue. Why was this not in the manuals??? Still the rear pad was…
January 19, 2021
Big progress on the cabin top today. I figured out a way to apply micro to the vertical surfaces which greatly reduced the waiting time. All told today I major sanded twice and applied micro three times. I think after tomorrow morning’s sanding session I should be ready to attached the cabin top to the airframe! Also up today was…
December 15, 2020
I came into the hanger this morning to find brake fluid under the fuselage. No bueno. Seems the tunnel brake fittings were not tightened, ugh. Shame on me for not double checking. My penance, 90 minutes of cleaning. Fluid leaked between ribs and skin, spar and skin, into every crack and crevice. Fuck me. Oh the day didn’t stop there.…
December 14, 2020
Started off running the 8awg wire for the alternators, shunt, and ESS (essential bus). Lots of lugs to crimp and heat shrink to heat. Then closed off the firewall pass through. It was time to rivet up to forward cockpit. It took some serious contortion under the panel but I managed the bucking bar pretty well – of course a…
November 24, 2020
Knocked off the brakes today. Nice to have that done. Also finished up battery box I built yesterday. Now time for turkey!
November 22, 2020
Man, today was a day that was an uphill climb. Right off the bat, when I removed the air valve used to leak test the tank the Loctite 515 made it stiff. Removed, I used acetone to try to cleaning the bung fitting. Then I screwed in (temporarily) the new AD4 fitting – mistake. This messed up the threads. Ugh,…
November 21, 2020
Started with crimping the BNC connectors for the ELT antenna and the COM2 antenna before moving back wheels. Oops, started the fuel tank pressure testing on the right side. Made Lee’s suggested plates on the wheel pants bracket and got them glued on. Tomorrow I will add some rivets and then do the final assembly of the mains. Then it…
November 20, 2020
Today was a bit of jumping around. I got a number of the wires pulled through the airframe, mounted the magnometer bracket, got the static ports ProSealed. A big chunk of the day was spent on getting the wheels mounted. The Matco wheels/brakes was pretty straight forward to figure out the order of installation, wheels on the axles the next…
November 19, 2020
A big chunk of this week has been spent ordering electrical connectors and hardware. For me a painstaking process to determining what is needed, documenting it, and ordering it. It wasn’t only buying fun, I had four packages with items to return too. I’d much rather be building. I did manage to get a couple things accomplished today, the correct…