Finishing Several Projects

Today I had to finish up several projects.

First, I started the day on the rudder pedals/toe brakes. I had to install the remaining cotter pins in the toe brakes. This was an effort as there was little room to maneuver. Got them installed and torque sealed. I then temporarily attached the brake cylinders to the toe brakes. I'll finish these up at a later date once I install the brake plumbing.

Next, I moved on to the landing lights. I hadn't been happy with where I had initially installed them because of the length of wire I was going to have to run. So, I decided to tackle them again. I wanted to move them as close to where the wing strut attaches to the wing. To do so, I flipped the brackets so the light would hang under the strut instead of being on top. I had to reverse the brackets and do some bending to get the lights to align correctly. This accomplished the task perfectly. Now my avionics guy can wire in the plugs and complete this wiring job.

Then I needed to fix the control column. Shocker, the manual is poorly written and I misinterpreted it and installed too many washers between the nylon blocks. So, I took it apart and removed the offending extra washers. While apart, I applied grease to the nylon blocks before reassembly. I got it all back together, checked for correct and easy movement and torque sealed those bolts. I have to install a couple of cotter pins in the Aileron cable shackles then I'll be finished with the control column.

Last, the spoilers in the wings must be painted before I cover the wings. I have be contemplating several ideas regarding paint schemes and decided to try one out. I began by removing one and priming it with acid etch primer, then a coat of white paint, then yellow. The white under coat is to make the yellow paint pop. I like the color but it needs a few more coats. I ran out of yellow so I'll let that dry overnight and re-spray tomorrow. I'm thinking of doing some chevrons or stripes in black or red over the yellow. Not sure, I'll decide tomorrow.

Rudder Pedals

Started the day helping Terry finish up his Kitfox covering job. We just had a few finishing tapes to do. Is was Terry's birthday too.

When I got back, I got back to work on my rudder pedals. I spent last evening filing, sanding and fitting the toe brake hoops to the pedal assembly. Trying to get them to operate very smoothly. I also drilled out for the rivets that needed to be installed to secure the hoops.

This afternoon I continued working on the hoops. I needed to clean and smooth the interior of the tubes. There was paint residue that needed to be removed. It occurred to me that a 12ga wire bore brush would be a close fit to the tubes. I happened to have one, I chucked it up in my drill and went to town. Perfect! Cleaned all of them up quickly.

Next, I put axle grease on all the parts and assembled them, checked one last time for free movement and then riveted each pedal together. After all of the pedals were assembled, I cleaned up the excess grease.

Once the hoops were installed I moved on to the brackets for the brake master cylinders. They were previously fitted and drilled for each cylinder. Since they had been painted, I needed to figure out which bracket went with each hoop. Once I had it figured out, I began installing them on each hoop. I also installed each cylinder base in the corresponding fuselage bracket. I left off with everything assembled but still needing cotter pins and to attach the cylinders to the hoop brackets. I'll tackle that tomorrow.

ELT, Remote Radio Installation

Up early this AM to final install the ELT and Garmin GTR 20 Remote Radio. The ELT's tray sits on three tabs welded to the fuse with lock plates installed in them. I wanted to have some vibration dampening so I purchased some large rubber fender washers to go between the tray and the fuselage. This will eliminate any noise from vibration.

I installed the ELT, it's custom tray, alarm, and antenna, tightened all the nuts and applied torque seal.

Next up was the Garmin GTR 20 Remote Mounted Radio. I got so excited about installing stuff that I got ahead of myself and installed the radio without weighing it. So, I had to remove everything, clean all the torque seal off, weigh all the components, then reinstall it. The installed weight of the radio and all the components = 2.10lbs.

I used six 1/4" thick rubber washers as standoffs between the radio and the tray. First, to give the radio some cushion from vibration and second, to allow some cooling air flow around the radio. Once the radio was mounted to the tray, I mounted the tray to the fuselage using six Adel Clamps.

I had mounted the Garmin Pitch Servo last night but after looking at it this morning I was not happy with the bolts I used (AN3-3). They were barely adequate but I reconsidered and decided to install the next size up (AN3-4). I prefer having a few threads exposed beyond the nut. In reality the bolts I had in place would be fine, but I just wanted to do it correctly so I took it back out and cleaned all the torque seal off the nuts and washers, and reinstalled with the longer bolts. I re-torque sealed everything. Happy now.

All three components installed...

Painting

My new DeVilbiss Finishline 4 spray gun arrived today, perfect timing. After cleaning it, setting it up, it was ready to paint. I mixed up some paint and began spraying. The gun worked perfect, very nice. It will take a while to get proficient with it, but I have a lot of small parts to practice on before getting to the larger more prominent cowling, fuselage and slats.

Do to a crappy old Craftsman spray gun, I had to repaint the rudder pedal hoops because of uneven paint and runs. After they dried overnight, I sanded the runs down and evened up the surface. Once sanded I cleaned them up and hung them on wire hangars ready to be sprayed again. Fortunately, I had the new gun. Here they are after I brought them in for the night.

I took the flap handle apart and removed the three plates that were not painted. I scuffed, cleaned and hung them for spraying.

After spraying a couple of coats of paint on the parts, I set about mounting the rudder pedals in the fuselage. I had to drill out the rivets I set in the pedals to hold everything in place while painting. After removing the rivets everything moved smoothly but the mounting rings scratched up some paint. After mounting them I touched them up.

The hoops have a tube that inserts in them and the rudder pedal assembly to hold the hoops on. These tubes have a tab on one end that needs to be painted. So, I taped off the tube itself leaving the tab exposed on each one (four total), sprayed them and set them aside to dry.

I had some paint leftover in the gun and didn't want to waste it so I began looking for something else to paint. I came up with the under seat storage bins. These were already upholstered with fabric so I didn't want to spray them, I decided to just brush on the paint as they wouldn't be seen anyway once installed. This is on the bottom and sides and is more about corrosion control than looks.

Next, I gathered up everything needed to mount the Garmin Pitch servo (tray, nuts, bolts, washers, servo, adel clamps and push rod) so I could weigh it. The installed weight of the pitch servo is 2.98lbs. After weighing, I mounted it back into the fuselage, hopefully for the last time. Once everything was tightened down, I torque sealed all the nuts to signify final assembly. The torque seal is used to tell if a nut has moved, come loose, since applying the torque seal. It will crack if moved so it makes it easy to tell if something is coming loose.

On to the ELT, I again gathered up all the components (tray, nuts, bolts, washers, screws, ELT, bracket, alarm, antenna and coax) so I could weigh them all. The installed weight of the ELT is 2.40lbs. I'll mount this all up tomorrow.

Firewall Forward Kit Components...

I received the first component of the Wild West Aircraft Firewall Forward Kit for the Yamaha Apex 300TI today. The radiator, beautifully crafted. I better get busy, the parts are starting to pile up!

NRProp and Hub Arrived...

Received the rest of the packages from the Ukraine today. The carbon fiber prop blades with stainless edges, pitch tool and beautifully machined aluminum hub arrived undamaged. Fantasticl! I had Roman custom paint the tips red for me, his standard is white. Oh, and they come in these custom fit covers too! Can't wait to see it all on the plane.

Spinner Arrived!

After a month in shipping my NRProp carbon fiber spinner arrived from Ukraine. The propeller is still in transit and hopefully will arrive Mon. or Tues.

Anyway, it is perfect! Beautiful workmanship and LIGHT! I left the keys in the pic for size reference. Slowly coming together...

Paint Booth

Survived the Thanksgiving Holiday, back to work. I began setting up my paint booth. I needed something portable yet large enough to be practical and useful. After thinking about it and researching what others had done, I ruled out setting up a PVC pipe booth. Although it would be easy to setup it wouldn't necessarily be portable.

The potability aspect comes into play because I have a large F450 dually truck that needs to be parked in the shop at night. We have pack rats in the desert that will make quick work of a wiring harness. This has already happened to the tune of $1k in repairs. So, the truck needs to come in at night.

Another way to accomplish this task is to purchase a pop up shade canopy. A little more expensive than the PVC pipe route but it is portable. I can fold this up and store it on a shelf in pretty quick order. They come in a variety of sizes but I selected the 10ftx10ft model. It isn't too big for the shop, I can have it, the plane and the truck all in at the same time which is what I was after. Granted the truck bed will be parked inside of the canopy but it fits.

I'll drape plastic sheeting on the sides to the ground and tape it all off to seal it up. There will be a heavy duty drop cloth on the floor. I'll use two box fans for pass through ventilation, one pushing clean air in and the other sucking the fumes out. Of course both fans will have filters, one cleaning the input air of dust and the other cleaning the paint over spray from the exhaust. I'll have to come up with a way to seal up the fourth wall that can be easily added and removed to park the truck at night.