Time: 2 Hours
I got in the hangar today for a couple of hours last Tuesday and installed the freshly painted roll bar. First I had to remove the top skin to give myself access to the area. Then I man handled it until I got a couple of the holes to line up again so I could slip a couple bolts in place to hold it into position. I was able to get the four bolts that hold the side flanges in place and one each end of the top plate before I ran out of AN3-5A bolts. I had ordered a bunch of parts from Aircraft Spruce which included these bolts. I will install them when they get here.
I’m at a point where I need to decide, for easy access, what if anything I want to install in the instrument side panels. These will be riveted in place soon and having them out and accessible makes cutting holes for things a lot easier. I know for sure that on the left side I will be putting my air vent. I really like the clean look and less clutter and have been working on that idea for a while. Everything else like switches will be in my custom side panels. One thing I think I will be putting on the right side panel is the ELT, Emergency Locater Transmitter, control panel. It’s small and won’t take up much space. The reason for it to go here vs the side panel is that it will be facing aft vs facing up in the side panel. It have a little bit of a recess to protect the buttons and I think it will be a dust catcher if that recess were to be facing up kinda like a cup. So I marked the dimensions on the panel to have a look.