Flying since Thanksgiving day 2020
I worked on the canopy hinges, gas struts and the canopy release mechanism. As usual, I put something together, tightened down bolts and then realized that I had missed a step and had to take it back apart. I have to wait for the paint to dry on one part of the canopy hinge mechanism so the total progress was miniscule.
I had planned to do some ProSeal work on the air vent today, but decided to put that off til tomorrow.
Total time: 2 hours
Jon and I got a lot done today. We finished up routing the brake lines. We fixed a couple pop rivets that I screwed up (last post). We installed the flap actuation system. We installed the Forward Upper Fuselage. We pulled several cables from the tail cone forward.
Soon it will be time to remove it from the rotisserie so we can start on some firewall things that are currently unreachable. The rotisserie makes working on the airplane so much easier.
Total time: 12 hours (Jon 7, Me 5).
I was putting in a small number of AACQ4-6 rivets to hold the plastic guides for the rudder cables. Apparently, my pop rivet tool was not tightly against the side of the tunnel and I ended up with a bad rivet. Normally, not a big deal — just take it out and put a new one in. Except I had exactly zero AACQ4-6 rivets left. Oh well, a call to Van’s to order $8 worth of rivets and a small assortment of other stuff I needed…
Completed rudder pedals and plumbing some of the in-cockpit brake lines. Because we are using TS Flightline brake lines, we had to enlarge one of the holes in the rudder pedal assembly middle support bracket to pass the brake lines through.
Realized that the rudder cables were in backward (forward end was at the tail ). The ends of the cable are different. Had to drill out several rivets where the cable exits the fuse near the tail to swap the cables end for end.
Found a couple places where we missed putting in some rivets. Luckily they were pretty easy to get to.
Attached the rudder cable anti-rub tubing to the center fuse using 4 adell clamps. It was especially difficult because there is very little room to get fingers and wrenches in there.
12 hours (2 people x 6 hours each).
Yup, we decided to move it to my basement so that I could more easily work on it whenever I had some free time. The challenge was getting it into the basement. I determined that taking a window out would allow me to move it into an unused space in the basement that from this point forward will be referred to as “The Airplane Factory”.
Don’t worry, I will be able to get it out in a few months when it is ready for the engine and landing gear.
