Time: 8 Hours
Had a great day in the shop today working on several tasks. First up was to rivet the two spar caps on so that I could put the consoles in place after finishing the wiring. These caps get blind riveted in place since you can’t get to the back side with them in place.
On the left side I added the two support brackets for the throttle quadrant.
With the caps in place I grabbed the left side console and worked on the wiring for the smoke system.
With as much of the wiring complete on the switches I put the console in place along with the throttle quadrant. I fished all the wires from the switches into the gear tower and up behind the panel.
There were a few wires that needed to be made for the smoke system to be complete.
I moved on to the right side console.
The back of the panel area is getting to be a serious plate of spaghetti.
I figured now is a good time to start cleaning it up before I move on to another task. To do this i’m going to start building up all the wiring harness ends. I’m starting with the VP-X switch d-sub connector. This connector houses all the inputs from the switches on the consoles. It also has the flap control inputs from the pilots grip. An input from the starter contactor to allow a signal when the starter is engaged for an annunciation on instrument panel.
About eight more harnesses left to do to clean this area up. A lot of work done today and great progress. I also shipped out my pilot grip back to Tosten manufacturing to have a switch changed. On my flaps I had a switch that was off in the middle, momentary (spring loaded) in the down position and always on in the up position. This switch is designated like this (on)-off-on. With the VP-X you don’t want a switch that stays in the on position as it will continue to send power to the flap motor and you will get a runaway fault. Instead you need a momentary on both sides of the off position, (on)-off-(on). I emailed Tosten and they said send it and they would replace for free just pay the shipping. Great customer service for sure.
