Time: 6 Hours
When you put the mid fuselage sides together including the arm rests the plans make a not that if you are going with the optional rear seat throttle now is the time to make the required cuts on the arm rest. I bought an after market throttle for the rear from DJM manufacturing. I had ordered the Van’s throttle so I would have all the extra parts needed to attach and mount the throttle. The new one I bought was not a “drop in” throttle and required a little bit of thinking and planning on my part. My plan was to have the throttle arm come up through the arm rest where the stock one would have. I also wanted the plate to be flush with the underside of the arm rest. The DJM throttle has a very nice anodized plate that has engraving on it for the labels. It’s a solid piece that has bolts that go thru it for mounting. Since the arm rest and the mounting plate are not a 90° angle I had to do some extra calculating to get the plate to sit flush. First up was to find where the plate will sit and mark the arm rest for cutting.
Then I cut the opening with the Dremel tool
I used several different parts from DJM and Van’s to get the line up just right.
I decided that I would mount the mounting plate on the outside or inboard side of the arm rest and vertical supports. It is supposed to go on the inside but I found that I would have a much easier time and it looks a lot better doing it this way. In order to do this I needed to trim the bottom bends of the mounting plate so that it would sit flush.
I put the plate in place along with the aft cover and the roll bar support piece to see how the fit was.
I then removed all the parts and tuned up the opening that I made in the arm rest. I then put all the parts back together and returned the parts to the arm rest area but under the lips of the arm rest and vertical supports. This allowed me to mark the screw holes on the mounting plate. I drilled all the holes to a #19 on the drill press so that I could clecko the whole setup in place.
In my planning phase I noticed that the mounting bolts would go through both the arm rest and the mounting plate. When removing the mounting plate I would need to unscrew the 7 screws as well as the 2 upper mounting bolts that go through the entire throttle. The nuts would be in very tight space between the throttle and the skin. So I decided to notch the arm rest so that the throttle would only be mounted to the mounting plate for support and the mounting plate would get its support from the 7 screws.
I made the notches large enough to go around the spacers I made out of aluminum tubing to get the throttle to sit just right on the underside of the arm rest. Here are a few photos of the throttle in place. It is a breeze to slide into place when I remove the 7 clecko’s. The rear side plate sits real nice on top of the mounting plate as well.
Overall I’m real happy with how it turned out. It took a long time but that’s because I don’t have a lot of fabricating experience and really have to think about all the dynamics of the moving parts. I’m getting better and really enjoy this process.
