Fuse progress

It has been awhile since I posted;  its been a fun summer, not much building thou.

Brakes are in as shown below. Still have a question if I will stay with the plastic, or move towards the AN lines. I guess the first fill tests will determine if there are any leaks. I used the solid stainless rods for the brake pivots. The brakes are very nice with good return force. I have a set of helper springs which I do not plan on installing; the pivot rods worked out so well, I don't see a need for helpers.

I am now installing the tail. The horizontal stab is on. For drilling those AN3 bolts, one really needs a 6" long drill bit.

On the vertical fin, my 90 degree drill attachment died, so I am waiting for the new one to arrive. I could drill without it, but after the experience with the horizontal stab, I would rather wait for the tool to make it easy.


Like most things, I was worried about getting the tail on right. But by taking it slow, it all worked out.


This picture shows much of the progress, tail on, engine in house, new upgraded motor mount, and sponge bob guarding it all.

I haven't decided if my next chapter will be the canopy or engine / electrical; it is pretty cold now, I might save the canopy for the warmer months.

Fuse Details

 With all the fuselage interior parts painted, I am starting final assembly of the fuse interior. I have installed the control column and the electric aileron trim. This is all standard stuff as per plans.

I have also installed the parking brake, ran the brake lines, fitted the fuel pump and ran the fuel lines. I will leave the fuel lines off for right now while I do the rest of the interior. I found it helpful to use house wiring to lay out the fuel and brake line routing. The brake lines to the gear legs had some 3-D bends to avoid the fuel lines.

With the seats painted and installed, I was able to make up a fake seat cushion and set the rudder pedals in the position I find most comfortable. This also allowed me to set the toe brakes with the right amount of forward lean so I wont inadvertently push on the brakes during taxi and landing. With all that figured out, I started drilling the pivot for the rudder pedals. I followed the advice of others, and am using a 3/16" solid stainless steel shaft as the pivot. It will be held in place by two cotter pins. Drilling the cotter pin holes in the stainless shaft proved to be challenging.  Here is a picture of the rod drilling and the way the pedals are installed.

Moving forward.

fuse update 8/2019

After a very fun summer, finally got back into it. Managed to get the main gear mounts on. I am getting started on the plumbing installation. Got the parking brake valve installed using a custom bracket in the same place of the stock bracket.

Went to Oshkosh this year and saw the new nose gear that I will be retrofitting. Looks pretty beefy. But since I will be one of the first ones installing on a -9A, I am a little concerned with where everything on the firewall needs to go. Here is a pic of the nose gear on the RV7A mock up.

On my way out, found this airplane mover. Looks kind of like an RC Tank model from Tamiya. I can make one of those. Guess I need to hold onto my old RC gear a little longer.

Interior paint

I have been working on fuselage interior. I have decided to paint the pieces separately as they are installed, instead of waiting till the interior is assembled and then trying to paint with all the nooks and crannies.

This plan has created many headaches; most of the build tasks can not be fully finished since I need to paint prior to installation.

Well I am to the point of  installing the interior systems like fuel vents, control sticks, etc.

I cant take it anymore so I decided to paint this weekend. 

Wow what a lot of painting. I bought an extra quart just so I would have it. Turns out 2 quarts will be plenty to do the interior. I am using the SW Jet Flex and this paint is totally awesome. I started painting at 10 am with the dew just about evaporated and the sun creeping out. During the session, the sun came out and it got hotter. Then towards the end it got cool and a little damp. The paint didn't miss a beat, I didn't have to change the mix ratios or gun settings in the 6 hours of painting.

Here are all the pieces laying about; tough to find enough space for drying. I still have a few covers to do, the rear bulkhead, and the upper skin of the baggage compartment. 

Now onto the gear install. I reamed the gear leg bolt holes and it was no problem. The task I dread turns out most of the time to be straight forward. A big thank you to all those who came before and wrote about it.

I am excited to complete all those tasks and continue final assembly. (And then I will clean the shop)

 

PH Aviation Flap Motor Install

I decided to install the new Flap Motor from PH Aviation. This flap motor replaces the stock Vans flap motor. I like the new one because it has a built in up and down stop, built in position pot to interface with the G3X, and has a different motor that may not suffer from grease contamination.

The installation is a little different than the Vans version.

First off, I made the F767 plate a little longer than the original to make sure the motor support brackets were completely contained on the plate. This eliminates a spacer and also provides more strength for the motor supports.  In the picture is the new F767 plate, and the stock F785A/F785B Backrest Brace and the stock F766A/F758 Flap actuator channel.

The new actuator is about 1 3/4" longer so I moved the actuator up higher. In the photo below, the hole to the left is the original location of the top pivot bolt. The added distance is the line on the right. I don't need to move the flap actuator the entire way to the right because I can also lengthen the actuator links to the flaps, if needed.

Here is a picture of the brackets being drilled to the Flap Actuator Channel to use AN470AD4-x rivets. The brackets are per the PH Aviation instructions that came with the flap motor. I used a AN960-416 washer and a little paper shim for spacing. The AN960-416 will become two AN960-416L washers (one on each side) and the paper shim is to ensure the flap motor is easily removed once the brackets get riveted on. The bolt will become a castle nut to allow some freedom of movement, as in the stock installation.

The assembly was drilled to the seat back brace per the plans.

Here is the final installation of the PH Aviation Flap motor. The rest of the installation follows the stock plans. (Please note, I still need to drill a hole in the Flap Actuator channel and add a doubler in order to remove the bolt)

If you notice, I have been putting off priming and painting the floors and interior panels. It is becoming a pain to keep working with things cleco'd together. I might have to bite the bullet and get the interior panels painted.

Fuse, Part 5, Rolling, Rolling, gotta keep them rolling

Big day today, I rolled the fuselage canoe. It is just a symbolic step about half way through the fuselage construction.

There was quite a bit of work to get to this point. Painting the inside was the most stressful for me having not touched a paint gun since last century; but in the end, this was not nearly as bad as I had imagined.

Along the way, I did run into a few things that had me puzzled. First off was the holes for the tail fairing. The plans led me to believe all the holes in the rear longeron get dimpled and countersunk. However, others have warned that several of these holes get tapped for screws to hold the fairing. The fairing is part of the finishing kit, so I don't have that piece. Vans was kind enough to send me some pictures of what holes need to be tapped. So I left these un-dimpled. From what I understand, the quick-build kits have these dimpled, so no crime either way. Here are the pictures from Vans showing the holes that can to be left un-dimpled.

Secondly, I had trouble with the jog in the forward longeron fitting properly. Vans approved me using a second angle and some shims as shown below. This is a little different than my previous post.

Lastly, several of the screws in the forward bulkhead need to be countersunk so that the rivets would be flush for the gear mounts. This is how I did that. I also had to use shorter rivets to make it all workout.

A few of the rivet lengths need to be adjusted. Just had to pay attention to catch them.
Overall, this part of the build gave me the most nightmares, but like eating an elephant, it was conquered one bite at a time.
Now back to building.