Bonding the top skin

Been putting off bonding the top skin for some time. Was about to do it then realised I need to run another cable for the propellor pitch control. I don’t have the prop cables yet but left some space to hopefully easily thread it later on. When the top skin is fixed it seriously restrict access. Anyway, set to work with Sikaflex 295 UV, instructions say > 10C, so waited till the afternoon we hit about 12 C inside the workshop. The Sikaflex is messy stuff, it gets everywhere. Also messes up your clecos. Lots of acetone was used to clean them and everywhere else it got.

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Firewall Forward and engine

Prepared Firewall for engine mounting. Conscious that I needed to get as much as possible fitted and holes drilled before the engine gets in the way! Fitting the foam and firewall components was fairly straightforward. Provisioned 2 x M4 rivnuts and a space for the Midwest Panel fuse box that will be needed later. Some got ya’s along the way. The fuel return lines now go on the left of the firewall. The installation manual shows 3 holes on right but my plane only had 2. The fuel pump power connector needs to be extended, but which one, which one is main and which one is aux. Which is A and B? It seems that the top pump on the Rotax pump box (when mounted upside down) is the main A pump and the lower is Aux Pump B, so pump B line needs extending with high temp cable. I used double heat shrink and staggered the connections, then added some harness weave on top to match the rest of the harness. Useful to get the heavy electrical cables (4 – 6 AWG) installed or at least ready before engine mount. Add cable to the starter motor and engine block ground lead. Rented an engine hoist, all went fine until the last nut! Some points to note, that may help others who follow later. Rubber mounting bushes are a tight fit. (Note two different types – hard and soft rubber). They need to sit well down in the engine mount, Fairy liquid helps. Do this first otherwise, you will think like I did that the bolts are too short. (Bottom 2 bolts need to be cut to 122 mm to avoid interference with engine). (2 hrs of unnecessary work). Bottom right fixing at turbo. My engine, as shipped had a captive metric fine thread nut riveted on a plate for shipping (pic). Spent ages trying to bolt my metric coarse thread to it!! Needed to remove it (drill out rivet – hard to get to) and use the correct kit M10 nyloc nuts. Even so, it’s hard to torque up the bottom right bolt. After the engine was mounted proceeded with some plumbing. Intercooler – placing baffle and hose cutting straightforward. The baffle fibreglass mounting holes need drilling out to about 20 mm for the grommets.

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Centre Fuselage and Seats

First tasks, checking inventory for the quick build fuselage, firewall forward and canopy kits many items missing. The elevator torque tube was very stiff as assembled by the factory. Had to drill out rivets and file down and realign all 4 bushes. A few special tools are needed to drill around corners in a tight space! 5 hours. But hopefully will pay dividends in smooth flight controls later. Adding rivnuts to the inside centre console. Getting good at this now. Having a bigger rivnut puller certainly helps when it can get into the space. Fitted rudder springs mid-fuselage – tricky leaning through the luggage door. Assembled Rudder pedals assembled and clecoed in place for now. Centre console box. Throttle/brake quadrant. All seats assembled (more than >>500 rivets right there) . Front seats backs spray painted with 2K aerosol (RAL 7005 Matt). Lets see if it’s hard wearing enough. Booster pump – learnt about differnt NPT fittings and torquing them. Hand tight + 1.3 turns typically. Dry fit heater and tubes. Naca ducts and fresh air assembly clecoded. Challenging to fit factory assembled elevator rod, eventually did per assembly instructions. From rear with some force and grease through the mid-fuselage grommet! Some have said that the fresh air mixer rattles and doesn’t close completely, so as it’s easy to do at this stage I added some 2 mm craft foam as others have done. Glued down with Gorilla glue.

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