June 23, 2020
OMG MORE NUT PLATES!
The rest of the nut plates arrived so I spent another day installing them into the floor. They suck to install, but they’re done and all the floors are removable instead of having to drill out rivets for every annual. Also, we want to add tie-downs in the baggage compartment later, so it’ll be easy to do at any time now.
I noticed today that I made the elevator bell crank spacers out of the wrong material. I used 5/16 tubing instead of 3/8, so a little work later and the spacers look much better. Pro-tip: if you need to square off the end of a tube, chuck it in a drill press and use a sheet of sandpaper over a block of wood. Works like a charm.
After Kacy knocked off work for the day we tackled some work on the left wing. First we ran the fuel level sender wires for the left tank to make sure they’ll reach out of the wing and we can pick them up in the fuselage. Next Kacy went through and made sure all the holes in the main wing spar were de-burred. That work should have been done as part of the quick build kit but we found a lot of rough holes.
While Kacy did that, I installed the stand-offs to hold the PVC tubing that will be our wing wiring conduit. I ordered the Panduit MHSS-SS-D lightening hole mounts after researching the best way to install the conduit and my first impression is that they’re going to work great. They were easy to install without the bottom wing skin and they mount securely around the bubbled shape of the rib holes. We put in 1 stand-off on every other rib through the wing and the conduit is really solid now. I have no concerns that it’ll drift or break loose and it’s securely held out of the way of all the push rods.
With the conduit mounted securely it seemed like the right time to finish all of the wing wiring. This included the AoA wiring and pitot tubing and the stall warner wiring. I made a bracket for to guid the pitot tubing under the bell crank and did the final mounting of the control box for the AoA heating element. It’s really great to see all the little parts installed and now we’re ready to rivet on the bottom wing skin whenever we run out of other work to do.
AoA Wiring & Pitot Lines Left Tank Fuel Sender Wiring
It was a long day of various topics but I’m glad to see the progress in the wings and fuselage.
-Paul
(Total Build Time: 339.3 hrs)