Category Archives: Aft Fuselage

ADHARS and GPS Antanae Shelf

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Time: 8 Hours

My last post had some fairing work and it turned out so-so, I’m not an artist by any shot and this will have a lot of work needed. 


I moved on to getting my ADAHRS mounted in the tray I made for them. I just needed to get them lined up with the axis of the airplane and attach them with non-ferous screws, I went with nylon screws and nuts with a little vibra-tite thread locker. 

I then connected the three lines between the two ADHARS. White is for static air pressure, blue is for pitot or ram air pressure and green is for AOA (angle of attack). I had already ran the Skyview network cables to the shelf area but needed to run the OAT (Outside Air Temperature) probes, one for each ADHARS. These will allow the units to give accurate readings with respect to airspeed. You need to keep the probes out of direct sunlight and away from any exhaust so I decided to put them under each wing. I placed them close to the access panels and in the same spot on both wings. 


With all the wires run I climbed into the tunnel to put the shelf back in place and make all the connections. I forgot how tight that space is and what a pain it is to work back there. So I powered up the Skyview and all worked perfect and crossed checked the two ADHARS units with no errors. I decided that I wanted to put my two GPS antanaes under the engine cowling and out of sight after talking with several builders this year at Oshkosh. I took some photos of a really nice setup and decided to replicate it. I started with a cardboard template. After I was happy with the shape and layout I transferred the dimensions to some .032 sheet and cut it out. I drilled all the holes for the mounting hardware as well as some lighting holes. I grabbed the two antanaes and mocked them up so I could drill the attach holes. I also drilled all the holes for the nutplates and dimpled them.I cleaned up all the edges and scuffed all the surfaces to be primed and painted. 


In between the priming and painting I worked on the firewall pass thru. I came up with the perfect spot on the right side of the firewall so that wires that needed to go to the engine area would run nicely.  I drilled a 3/8″ hole for a punch bolt to go through, I bought this tool just for this task. It is two peices that get pulled together and cut thru the sheet. It made a clean and perfect hole and was a lot easier than drilling the stainless steal. I used the pass thru as a guide and drilled the attach holes. After they were drilled and deburred I put the screws in and slid the fire sleeve on. I will run my wires thru this and seal it up at a later date when all the wiring is done. 

Vans had prepunched 3/4″ holes, one on each side, that I was originaly going to use but they are just to close to the edge of the firewall and I think they would be in the way of the Skybolt fasteners I’m planning on using. That was the main reason for switching to these firewall pass through from Cleaveland Tools. So what to do with the holes that Vans punched? Well after a little research I decided on using two large washers and a bolt/nut to sandwich the firewall between them. Once the paint on the GPS shelf was dry I bolted it in place. 

I’m real happy with how it turned out and have Bob M. to thank for the inspiration. One last task for the day was to clean up the wiring in the battery compartment since I’m done running grounds and wires through the firewall, at least on the right side. I have a little more work straighten out the ground wires, but I’m happy without turned out!

Battery Cover

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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!!
  
 

Tail Top Skin

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Time: 4 Hours

I gathered up all my tools and prepped the tail for riveting. Climbing in and out of the tail wasn’t an easy task and I wanted to minimize that as much as possible. I grabbed several bucking bars, the ones I thought I might use and my hearing protection. I placed a work light down in the tail to help see all the areas. Glenn volunteered to run the gun while I was squeezed into the tail. We worked from the center at the top and riveted the support ribs working outboard on each side. As we did those we worked aft along the seam on both sides.  

   It took around 4 hours as we took a couple of breaks since the bell crank was right in my lower back. I placed a couple of movers blankets to soften it out a bit but it was still uncomfortable! I could have removed the bell crank but all those washers are a real pain in the butt so I opted for discomfort. No drill outs needed and they all looked great!  
   The aft most support I could do from outside as will as the forward most.  
   One reason I hate skipping ahead in the plans is that no matter how hard I try to mark and remember items I always seam to forget them. The aft deck, where the horizontal stab lies is just one case. I put off riveting it to make it easier to shape the up and down stops of the elevators. Fast forward to now and I just finished riveting the top skin on and the deck wasn’t finished! What this caused was for me to get a little creative on how to rivet it on but it got done. After that task was done I was able to place the HS into its final position and bolt it down. This meant climbing back into the tail so that I could torque the bolts.  
     

  

  

  

 After climbing out I got to climb right back in to put the ELT antanae back in place. Good thing is I’m getting pretty good a sliding in and out of the tail although that’s not a task I wanted to be good at!  Big step finished and it’s starting to resemble an airplane again!  

  

First Wiring

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Time: 6 hours

I had received a couple packages in the mail a week and a half ago from various vendors. One was from Summit Racing which had the elbow I needed for my smoke tank high pressure hose. This had a male fitting on one side and a swivel female on the other allowing me to hold the perfect angle as I tightened it down. So I installed the elbow and cut the high pressure hose to the correct length. With the hose cut and installed I tightened down the hose clamp and secured the rest of the hose with zip ties.  

   The other deliveries were from Aircraft Spruce, Avery Tools and Dynon.  
 The Avery box had the custom flap push rods that I knew I wanted to get eventually and heard they were retiring and closing shop so I placed the order. All the other stuff was for wiring avionics. Firs up was to run the pre made harnesses for the ADSB and Transponder. I figured out the route in which I wanted to use and ran the bundles. I put the avionics shelves back in place and taped the avionic mockup sin place to start the layouts.  Once I was satisfied with the routes I zip tied and used adel clamps to secure a place.  

    
 I ran the bundles thru various snap bushings and zip ties on their way to the front. I’m not sure to the exact length they will need to be until I solidify the panel and where items will be. So I curled up the remaining length and zip tied them for later work. I used my shrink tube printer to mark the bundles for easy identification later.  

   I installed the bracket I made to hold the EMS box to help with wire length planning.  
 The other Barnes I wanted to run was the network cable from aft area to the from avionics bay. The Dynon system uses this 9 pin d-sub connections to tie each and every component together so they all talk to each other. Each component has multiple connections so that you may tie others into and out of them.  Dynon makes a 5 port hub to allow 4 item to plug in and one out. My plan was to run one line from the two ADAHRS, via a splitter, from the back to a hub in the avionics bay.  Dynon makes these harnesses in various lengths starting at 1.5′ and up to 30′.  So I bought one that gave me enough length to make it up to the avionics area plus a bunch extra that I can use for other runs after cut. Dynon puts a connection on one end and just the pins on the other so you can fish through small openings.  

   I figured out a good spot for one of the 5 port hubs on the forward avionics wall.  
 Last item I worked on was the Hobbs hour meter. I took some advice from my buddy Glenn to install one even though the Dynon system will keep track of it. The reason is that it’s nice to be able to just look at the meter without having to power up the aircraft. This hour meter will be used to mark key maintenance items.  I wasn’t to fond of having this big gauge in the cockpit. While at AirVenture this year I saw another RV that had the meter inside his forward cargo area facing forward. I thought this was great, it isn’t inside the cockpit and it will be easily accessible by opening up the cargo door. So I did some measuring and came up with the spot that’s close to the edge but does not interfere with the door. I used my Dremel tool to cut the opening and drill the holes for the attachment hardware.  

   All this happened last weekend and I was a little behind in blogging about it. I was in Las Vegas for the NBAA convention and had a three day trip right after. Not sure how much time I will get in the hangar this week as its Thanksgiving and we are excited to have family here for the first time in our new home. I have a lot to be thankful for! 

Control Sticks & Smoke Oil Fill

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Time: 6 Hours

Today I worked on installing, at least temporarily, the pilot and passengers control stick grips. I purchased the grips from Tosten Manufacturing after looking at them at AirVenture 2015. First task was to come up with a rough height for the pilots control stick as the original part is too long. After coming up with the link I took the stick out of the aircraft and cut it with a hacksaw. With the stick cut I marked a spot at the lower section to drill a hole for the wires to exit.  

 To make it easier to fish the wires down through I put some shrink tube on the end of the wires   
   once I had the hole drilled in the bottom of the control stick I was able to slide the wires through and do some measurements to see how the grip fit. It took me several tries to get the length just perfect so that it cleared the bottom of the instrument panel and crossmember. 
    
 A nice feature of these grips is the collar that the grip slides into. This gets held in place with a drilled hole and cap head screw which also holds the grip into position. This collar also allow for the grip to be twisted and raise up around 3/8″ as required to get a perfect fit to your hand position. I drilled a 3/16″ hole 1/2″ from the top and inserted the screw and jam but to hold it for now.  

 I basically repeated these steps for the passenger grip with an addition to putting the pilot seat back in place which is the limiting factor to the height as you don’t want the grip to hit the back of the seat when pushed full forward.  

    
 The grips turned out awesome and I love the feel. The pilot grip has a trigger that will be the push to talk button. The left lower thumb button will be for smoke. The hat in the center is for trim and the toggle to the left for flaps and to the right will be for COM 1/2 switching. There is a pinky button below the trigger for autopilot touch steering. The passenger will just have trim and the push to talk. From there I moved to another modification that I’m follow my buddy on. The oil tank obviously needs to be filled with oil at some point. The first way is to reach in and pour oil in via a cap on the tank. The next and better way is to use an external full kit that I bought from smokingairplanes.com. It allow you to open a cap like a fuel cap and pour oil in and not mess with the possibility of making a mess inside you airplane. Glenn showed me a photo of a P-51 Mustang and their center fuel tank fill port on the left side just under the canopy.  

 So we are gonna put ours just like that! Glenn had a side canopy fiberglass skirt from his last project so I used it to mark the location that it will lie on the fuselage.  

 From there I made the mark for the location of the 2″ hole. Glenn helped me hold the skin on the drill press to make the cut with the fly cutter. I used the support ring to mark all six holes for the screws.  

   I drilled the center of the holes with a #40 drill bit followed by a #11 for the #10 screw.  

 After all six holes were drilled I screwed the fill cap into position.  

    
   I will eventually paint the cap red to give that P-51 look. I’m really done with the items in the back except for a couple of wiring harnesses and those will arrive on Monday. So I started cleaning up a few items that I had on hold. First was to trim the cabin heat cable to its final size. I wanted to drill the tee for the smoke tank system that goes through the firewall. This tee will direct oil to both exhaust pipes. I drilled the 9/16″ hole and put the tee in place.  
 With the fitting in place I could cut the cabin heat cable to the correct length so it doesn’t interfere with the tee or my rudder pedals.  

   One last item was to cut the fuel boost pump wired and crimp some ring terminals on the ends. I then screwed them to a two place terminal block. This will allow me to unscrew them in the future for easy replacement as needed.  
Thats where I called it a weekend and will get back at it tomorrow when my parts arrive. 

  

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