Final Fuse Push

 Now that the panel is done enough to install, I have been working to finish all the fuselage stuff to limit the amount of work I need to do on my back once the panel is installed. 

First off was to finish the fuel lines. I have been putting this off because I didn't want to keep hitting them as I walked around the airplane. Now it was time to install. My hat is off to those who did this per the plans; I was not able to get a single line from the valve to the wing roots, so I broke it up into three pieces. Ya the extra breaks have more potential for leaks, but I am using 200 PSI fittings for a maximum of 8 psi; so I think it will be OK.

 

Next  up was figuring out the GPS and XM antenna placements. I was planning on putting them just forward of the firewall, exactly like what is NOT recommended due to heat. Then I thought about a place on the glare shield, but I didn't like seeing over them all the time. I thought the rear turtle deck would not work because I was afraid the canopy would not slide over them. Turns out someone posted a picture on line and guess what, the canopy clears them by a large margin. So I ended up installing the GPS antennas in the preferred location on top the fuselage. Now I have to spend $200 on 50 feet of RG400 cable to run to the back. Oh well. Here are my antennas installed temporarily so that I can run the antenna wires. I think this is going to work out great!

I also installed the parking brake handle. I had to redo the idiot light switch. (I was an idiot the first time). I had it activate when the lever pushed on it, but a slight shaking would cause it to be intermittent. I changed it so that it is activated when the lever sweeps past it; no longer susceptible to vibrations. 

I still need to torque everything, and then torque strip. 

Next up is prep for the engine mount install, than install the panel, than hang the engine. Lots to do.

 

Panel Bench Wiring Done!

Well today I am calling done the bench wiring of the Panel and Sub-panel. I cant think of anything else I can do on the bench before installing it and hooking everything up to the stuff already wired in the plane.

Here are the pics on the bench of all the stuff. There is really a lot of boxes and wiring in this panel. It didn't look so bad when viewing the schematic several months ago. 

I can't light it up without the antennas hooked up, so I will just pretend that it is wired correctly. 

I have been neglecting the fuselage wiring; so now it is time to clean that up, and get all the foot well stuff done prior to putting in this panel structure.

Instrumentation Continuing

 After 3 months of wiring, the instruments are nearly done. I figure there are a dozen computers to wire up with about 250 terminations. Nothing too hard, but it takes time. In final wire check of sub-panel, I found 3 miss wires out of about 250 terminations; not bad. (None of them were smoke producers, just data lines.)

I decided to add a CO detector at the last minute after watching a you tube video. This was easy since I had left service loops.

With the sub-panel wiring done, I am working on the cutting the instrument panel for all the switches and stuff.

 

 

 

Center Stack Wiring

 Just a quick update.
Center radio stack wiring nearly done. About 100 terminations so far. Only another 150 or so to go.

If you look closely at the picture, lots of things going on. For example, supports modified to allow screens to be high on panel. Connectors are mounted on brackets in approximate locations to allow nice harness routing. Harness pass thru holes in sub panel. Fuse block installed. Wires are labeled with printed heat shrink tubing. Splices and terminations are inside back shells for greater reliability and better EMI (don't try this at home, it can go wrong if not carefully done)

Firewall and Engine Prep

 Great progress these past few months. It seems as one gets closer to being done, many more decision need to be made by oneself. The plans become "a guide" and not instructions carved in stone.

For the engine, it seems there are two oil configuration choices for fixed pitch prop. The difference for a fixed pitch is the oil that normal goes to the prop needs to go somewhere and not build up pressure in the forward part of the crank. There seems to be two ways to do this when using fixed pitch. First is to use the normal oil return to the governor  by letting the oil return through the governor cover that has a milled slot. This is shown in the picture of my cover plate. The second way is to open up the front crank plug, punch a hole in the rear crank plug, and then reinstall the front crank plug. Then one could remove the governor line from the front to the back and plug the fitting holes in the case. Since I had the governor line in place and the front crankshaft plug already factory installed, I just verified the rear governor cover had the milled slot and than put everything back together as shipped from factory. This way a future conversion to a constant speed prop will be easy. I also installed the alternator on the vac pump pad and checked the torque on the fittings that were factory installed. I still need to put the oil and fuel fittings onto the accessory case.

For the firewall, most of the electrical stuff that attaches to the firewall is installed. I still have to assembly the wires with lugs and stuff. Here is how I did the current shunt and the ANL fuses. I have everything with 12V power on fusible links or ANL fuses before passing thru the firewall. I am using a single shunt set up to read battery charge and discharge current. This will tell me if the alternator is putting out sufficient current to have extra to charge the battery or if my load is too great and discharging the battery. Please note the copper bus bars are not straight. This was done to allow some expansion and contraction so as not to pull or push on the contactor  terminals.  Moving forward (Pun Intended)

Wiring, or making rats' nests

 So I started finishing the wiring. My goal is to get all the wires in the fuselage before starting the engine and instruments. This will keep me from having to bend over and under the panel to install the wires and fuel lines on the fuselage floor. The wiring from the spar back was all done a month ago, but the wiring on the floor, in front of the spar, took some doing. This involved planning out all the wiring runs and finding enough holes in the spar to bring the wires through. It also meant I had to install the transponder and comm antennas to get those cables routed. I had to use a cat5e computer cable to get all the stick grip signals to the instrument panel; running individual wires for all the functions on the grips would have never fit through the existing spar holes. The cat5e cable used 4 pairs of 28 AWG wires in a very tight bundle, giving me 8 functions spread between the two stick grips.

I also put in the parking brake and made a bracket for the parking brake cable and the micro switch to tell me the parking brake is on.

Next up is the fuel system final install on the fuse floor. This has already been installed, but now it is time for final install.

In my spare time, I have been creating the panel wiring schematic. It seems I need 6 each RS232 outputs but only have 5 available. The G3X experts from Garmin helped me out and said if I run an independent GPS antenna for the G5, then I don't need a 6th RS232 output. I think that is what I will do; this will make the G5 a true system backup, able to get me to VFR weather if everything else goes COVID on me.

Canopy Success

I finished up gluing the canopy to the frame and it came out well, I am very happy with the Sikaflex method and thinks it is the only way to go.

The canopy and canopy rails have been installed, along with the rear anchor blocks, and Supertracks.

I used the anchor block drill guide from RVPlasticParts.com and the angles were spot on. I had to shim one side in the tool to get the hole in the correct left and right location; this was mainly due to the fact that I had to move the anchor blocks outboard slightly to make sure there was the proper edge distance for the screw hole in the longeron.

I did a preliminary trim of the windscreen and marked the forward edge of the windscreen on the top forward fuselage skin. This will allow be to mask off and paint the portion of the skin inside the windscreen dark grey before final riveting.

I plan to finish the windscreen final trimming and canopy's fiberglass work once I am done with the instruments, electrical and engine forward installation. I want to build up my fiberglass skills on the tail feathers and cowling before tackling the canopy. (pun intended)

I am now starting on the final forward fuselage stuff working from the floor up, and firewall forward. I hope to be done Tuesday.