Time: 4 Hours
Since I decided to put the battery in the lower section of the forward baggage section I need to make a cover for this area. Normally this area, to the right of the pilots right leg is open for bags and such. I took advantage of this area to place my battery, battery contractor and grounding block. This allows for short wire runs between these items and makes for a clean firewall on the engine side. But with these items in place and open at the top any baggage or items in the forward Baghdad could fall down there. So I need a cover and I fabricated it out of some extra wing skin sheet I had. I transferred all the measurements to the sheet trying to utilize the rivet holes already punched in the skin.
It took several tries to get the fit just right as the perimeter isn’t square and there are several notches needed. Once I had the fit just right I laid out three angles to give it some support and match drilled them to the skin.
I also drilled up through the Cam-Loc holes for the inboard edge and drilled new Cam-Loc holes in the outboard edge down through the support angle on the right side forward skin. I did not rivet this angle a awile ago just for this reason. That way I could remove the angle to rivet the receptacles to it.
There are two rivet holes in the skin that over lapped the inboard floor that I needed to fill so I mixed up some super-fill and added it to them and will sand them flush after they dry.
Since I had a little time left before I needed to head out for our New Years Eve plans I took care of a couple other tasks. First was to install my new Odessey PC-680 battery and I cut and installed the smoke system pump ground on the grounding block.
I bought the battery so that I could test some the functions, the ones I can without the Vertical Power VP-X, and I will plan on replacing it when I’m ready to fly. The other task I got finished was to install the vertical stabilizer. The bolts are pretty hard to get to now that the other parts are in place and the tool I made a long time ago to hold AN-3 bolts really helped.
So that’s where I stopped in 2015, I think 2016 will be an even better year with lots to look forward too. Happy New Years Eve!!
