Picture worth a few words...

... and I did it by myself. :-)

I didn't start the evening off planning to do that. I ran the passenger side brake line which took about 15 minutes. Set the plane back down on it's own legs and turned it around in the shop. Engine was already swinging from the hoist, so I just pushed it up to the fuselage. Pulled out the mounting bolts and dampeners and thought I'd see how it all went to together... about 40 minutes later it was done!

Honestly.. I did it by myself. I put the two bottom bolts in first, got one of the top bolts in and the last one was the hardest but finally to it in. So there you have it... you CAN hang an engine by youself. Downside is that this will come back off in a couple of weeks to get torn down. I just wanted it on while we hang the wings on Saturday.

(Time: 2 hrs)

Prepping for wing mating

Picked up an engine hoist on the way home.. borrowed it from RV-9A flyer, Nathan Larson... who is starting to build his Lotus 7 kit car.

My shop is a complete disaster right now, have to much stuff and it's all disorganized. Picked up the engine off the stand with the hoist, moved things around so I could get the wings out. Then spent time just cleaning things up, putting tools away, etc. I'm going to run the brake line on the pilot side next and then set the plane down on the gear. Going to see if I can hang the engine.

Bolts and brake line

Started off doing some misc. things like adding another washer to the gascolator bolts, replaced the bolts holding the main gear legs on and torqued them down, installed bolt attaching canopy release rod to arm, put the nutplates on the passenger side U-810 bracket and put the tire and brake caliper on.

After watching the Amazing Race, I went back out and decided to run the brake line on the pilot side. It took awhile to figure out and to get it run in a way that it doesn't rub on the wheel pant or brake caliper. Basically, it needs to make a really tight turn around the gear leg. I was able to do all the bending with a spring tube bender.

Wheel end of brake line. Note how tight the turn needs to be as it comes around the back side.

Upper end.

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Located U-813's, put tire/brake on

Spent 15 minutes looking for the U-813 brackets and finally found them with some help. Decided to put the pilot side tire and brake caliper on, that took all of 3 minutes. Gave the cat some attention and went back inside.

Weekend of fiberglass and fairings

Downside to not posting on the weekend is I forget what I did! :-)

I finished attaching the passenger side wheel pant.

I did a 4-layer layup in each pant where the outboard bracket attaches.

Layups with Dacron

Bolted on the gascolator an safetied the bowl. (Took two tries.)

Gascolator with safety wiring

Cleaned up the brackets and then alodined them.. they'll live a hard life inside the wheel pants.

Bracket bolted back on gear leg.

I riveted on the U-808 brackets to the aft half of the pants, using some epoxy with microballoons to give it extra strength.

U-808 riveted on.

Layed up some fiberglass on the inside of the U-813B nose wheel pant so it will fit better on the aft half.

I fit the nose wheel pant together and drilled the screw holes and attached nutplates. The nosewheel pant fit perfectly as it came. I had to do NO trimming. You can tell it was made by a different company than the main wheel pants.. the color is different and the quality is much better.

I trimmed the U-818 nose gear leg fairing.. pretty simple. Need to install the hinge in that.

Put a piece of bus bar between master/starter contactor.

Contactors

(Time: 10 hrs)

Pilot side wheel pant

The holes I tried to fill didn't fill.. the epoxy leaked out since I used tape on the back side of the hole. One of the holes I stuck a piece of clay on the back side and it stayed. Lesson learned. I also took that as a sign that I didn't need to fill the holes and just leave the bracket positioned as it was. Mel responded to an email I sent him today saying that any patched holes really need to have some cloth on them to reinforce, otherwise the epoxy will crack.

So, I cleco'd the aft pant back on the wheel, screwed the front half on, positioned it so it was parallel to the fuse and drilled the holes for the inboard bracket.

Worked on the passenger side wheel pant by enlarging the hole for the wheel, cut the slot on the inboard side for the axle and then drilled the four holes for the U-808 bracket.

Tomorrow I can finish up the passenger side and then work on the nose wheel. I broke down earlier this week and ordered Van's new wheel pant fairings, both the upper and lower. I originally was going to save the $$ and do it myself.. but at $35 each, kinda hard to pass up. Anyway.. they came today.. holy cow are the upper fairings huge! The quality of these is so-so in my opinion. We'll see how well they go on. :-)

Builder friends status report: Bill's RV-7 project is moving along.. he's just starting on the roll-bar. Ray is screaming along on his RV-10 project. He has the side skins of the fuse drilled and is deburring them. He'll have a canoe to sit in by the end of May!

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Moving a bit backwards

Started on positioning the wheel pant so it was parrallel with the fuselage. Dropped some plumb lines from the center of the fuse and measured out. My wheel pants were off by 1/2" or so. Did some more trimming so I could shift it around a bit. Then I realized that I had not straightened the U-808 bracket before drilling, I had just bolted it on. So... I decided to fill the holes I had already drilled with some epoxy and will reposition it and get it right. No forward progress tonight.

(Time: 1.5 hrs backward)

Pilot side wheel pant

Time to attach the wheel pants to the wheels.. first you have to draw a centerline down the wheel pant. Good thing Sandi got me a laser level/light thing. I set the pant on the floor an leveled it vertically then used the straight laser line to mark points along the center line. Then just connected the dots. I also leveled the fuselage and bolted on the U-808 outside bracket. This inside bracket was already on.

The opening in the bottom of the wheel pant isn't big enough as they come, so I enlarged it somewhat until it would slide by the tire. (I measured down each side of the pant using the centerline on top, that gave me a more centered hole for the wheel.) Sliding it on the tire as far as it would go, I eye-balled where I needed to trim for the gear leg. Slowly made the slot deeper. The one mistake I made here was that my 1" block on top of the tire was sitting on the nutplate which made the pant sit a bit higher.

Opening for tire.

Once the slot was large enough I used the laser level/light to paint a line down the center of the tire. Since the wheels are off the ground, the wheels camber inwards, so make sure you take this into account. Once the laser light was running right down the center, I positioned the aft wheel pant back on, getting it all centered and the aft end the 8 5/8" off the ground. With some light shining from behind, I was able to drill the pant to the U-808. That was it for the evening.

Aft half in position.

Front half sitting in place. Looks good!

I probably spent way too much time doing all this.. fussing with the laser light... getting everything straight... Sandi will tell you I squeek when I walk... maybe sometimes. The fairings and wheel pants can really affect the amount of drag on your airplane and whether it flies straight.. so I'll spend the time. It dawned on me this morning that my 8 5/8" measurement might be off a bit since the pant sits a little higher than 1" above the tire. I can't be more than a 1/4" off, so I'll leave it. The way to check it would be to set the plane down on the gear and push the tail down... with the tail down you don't want the pant to touch the ground. I may do that just to make sure. (Squeek squeek.)

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Drilling the wheel pants

I put the wheel pants together and drilled the holes for the screws and nutplates and then riveted on the nutplates. I first drilled with a #40 and cleco'd starting at the top and going down the sides. (Don't forget, the inboard side hasn't slighly different hole pattern.) After the #40, I followed up with a 1/8" plexi bit. The #30 bit seemed to grab and want to tear at the fiberglass. I coutersunk for the washers and then put in a screw/nut to hold that section in place and then did the next one.

Pretty straight forward... the first couple of holes I coutersunk too deep because I grabbed a large CS washer instead of the #6. Nice thing about fiberglass is I can just fill the hole with epoxy and re-drill.

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Wing mating... soon!

I got word this past weekend that the building around the corner is available. So I'm planning on moving the plane over on the 29th assuming I can get the fairings completed. I have Bill and Ray committed to come out and help, so it should be a snap. Currently making a list of things to do while the wings are on, as they'll have to come back off when done.

- Fuel lines
- Vent lines
- Gap fairings
- Mount and rig ailerons and flaps
- Cut hole for flap push tube
- Wiring?
- Holes in fuse for wiring?
- Mount tail pieces
- Install rudder stops
- Install aileron stops
- Get reamer for drilling rear spar holes.

Van's instructions for mating wings: http://www.vansaircraft.com/pdf/Wing_%20Incidence.pdf

Sanding the wheel pants

With my layups setup, time to check the fit. First one fit really well... I had to do some sanding along the top edge to get it to sit down. This one had the dacron on it.. when I peeled of the Dacron the layup looked really funny.. the last layup was seperated from the second layup.. how weird was that! That dacron soaked up so much epoxy that it didn't even stick. When I peeled off the tape layer that was seperated, I discovered that I forgot to peel the plastic off the second layer before laying up the 3rd layer. DOH! (Heeeeere's your sign...) Turned out OK as I didn't need that 3rd layer.

The second pant had all three layers and it was built up too much, so I spent most of my hour in the shop sanding it. I have it close but still needs some work. Probably finish it tomorrow night and then drill the holes in them to hold the pieces together.

Spent 30 minutes in the house just reading the instructions for mounting the pants to the plane so I had an idea in my head how it all works.

(Time: 1 hrs)

Gear leg fairings cont. and wheel pants started.

Picking up where I left off last night, I mixed up a batch of epoxy (West Systems) and some of the West Systems filler. I expoxied two of the fingers in place and set them out in the sun to cure.

Fingers epoxied in place.

While the first set of fingers cured, I pulled out the main wheel pants. I stuck the first set together to see how bad they were.

Not even close to matching.

The first job to tackle was to create a more defined 'ledge' on the forward half for the back half to sit into. I ran a piece of tape around the pant to mark the trim line and pulled out the dremel. Using a grinding stone, I ground off the excess creating a defined edge. Then I spent some time sanding the back pant half to get a nice even fit around the perimter. I had one problem area as seen in the photo above.. the bottom corner has a huge gap and to fix it would require sanding a 1/4" or better off the rest of the edge to match. Instead I decided to "fill" that gap with some epoxy.

The first set of 'fingers' were cured enough to work on the other side. So I mixed up a second batch of expoxy/filler and attached the last two fingers. On the wheel pant, I created a dam of sorts (using some clay I previously ordered) in the corner area and filled up the pond with epoxy. I had to work with it for 30 minutes or so while it setup... the exoxy kept flowing away and since it was on a curved surface it took a lot of babysitting. (Didn't get a picture of this.. will snap one tomorrow before I sand it all down.

So... time to pull out the other wheel pant while the fingers dry and the other wheel pant sets up. This one was in even worse shape than the first!

How's that for a gap to correct!

So again, I put a piece of tape around the pant to mark and edge and went at it with the dremel. Then I tackled the back half of the wheel pant... it needed serious sanding to get a straight edge all the way around, so I pulled out the belt sander. After 20 minutes or so of sanding, I got a pretty decent fit between the two pieces.

Taped up for trimming.

End result.

The two halves together.

With the gear leg fairings cured enough to play with, I sanded off a bit of the excess and clamped them in place to see how the looked.

Up close of the clamped finger.

Fairing is done! (Almost)

Turning back my attention to the wheel pants. The aft half of the pant has a thinner layup of fiberglass than the forward half, so when mated it sits down on the ledge too much, leavning a lip. So I decided to do some fiberglass lay ups on the aft half to thicken it up a littler. Technically this is the second time I've played with fiberglass.. the first was working on the empenagge tips a year or more ago and that was using a kit from Wal-Mart. Now I have all the right tools! (I thought.)

So I've been reading a lot of websites on this fiberglass stuff and have learned some tricks. If you use some sheet plastic and wet up your fiberglass on top of it, then fold over the plastic on top, forming a sandwhich.. then you can cut out the fiberglass however you need too. I have the plastic, have the epoxy, have the rotary cutter, mixing cup, sticks.... uhhhh.. no sponges or brushes. Crap... quick trip to Wal-Mart to grab a couple of sponges and a side trip to DQ for some ice cream.

Cut out some 9oz cloth, mixed up some epoxy, spread it on the plastic, layed on the cloth, squeegied it around a bit, poured some more epoxy of the top on the dry areas, folded over the plastic, marked my cut lines and used the rotary cutter to cut on them. Tried picking up a strip to lay on... DAMN! I didn't cut all the way through, so I had a fiberglass mess. Grabbed the rotary cutter and made sure this time I cut all the way through! (TIP: Press hard!) Fortunately my fiberglass was wider than what I actually needed, so I had some extra. Pulled up a strip and put it in place on the inside of the pant. Tried to use the sponge to sponge it on but the fiberglass stuck to the sponge, not the pant!! DAMN! Ok... so that strip goes in the trash. Spread some epoxy on the pant to give the fiberglass something to stick too.. grab another strip, this time, leaving one side of the plastic in place. (I knew that before.. but got frustrated when I was in a fiberglass mess and pulled both sides off the first time.)

This time it stuck to the pant and I was able to press it in place somewhat with my fingers, then I peeled off the plastic. Two more strips on top of that one and I've done my first 3-layer lay up! With lessons learned, I tackled the other back half and it went a bit smoother. I did put some Dacron cloth on this half to see how it works.

Pant #2 done w/ dacron on it.

With that I called it a night! You don't see more pictures of builders doing layups because they are covered with epoxy and can't grab a camera! :-)

A good weekend with quite a bit of time in on the project and doing lots of stuff around the house too. This week I plan on continuing to work on the wheel pants. I also need to run the brake lines down the gear leg. Once I have some fiberglass experience under my belt, I may tackle the canopy. We'll see... may have to bring in a hired gun for that one... I want it to look good.

(Time: 6 hrs)

Main gear leg fairings

Pulled out the gear leg fairings to start working on them. These turned out to be very easy to work with.

Following the instructions, I used a square on each end and taped the trailing edges together to take out the twist. Made the marks on the tape and then slit the tape. You use this for a reference later on.

I cut out the template from the drawing and taped it to the fairing and marked the necessary trim lines. The position of the template references a mold line (or something like that). One of my fairings had no marks/lines on it at all... the other one had double lines, about an inch apart at the top, middle and bottom. Well.... how am I supposed to interpret that! I used the second mark down from the top to position the paper template... and just transfered the lines location to the other fairing that didn't have any marks. TIP: The template has a line showing where the center line of the gear leg will be, mark the lines at the top and bottom on each side and once you take the template off, connect the marks. This will help you position the fairing once it is on the leg.

I made the cuts using the cut-off wheel that you use for the canopy.. works very well. I finished shaping the notches with some needle files. The instructions say not to cut the trailing edge where you marked... but never tells you later to cut it, so I don't know what that trailing edge line is for or if you are supposed to trim on the line.

Top end of fairing with notches cut out.

With the cuts made, I worked on installing the hinges. I had 3 pieces of long hinge material left but it was different than what I have been using up to this point. I wasn't sure if it was the right stuff or not.. so I called Ray. Yup.. that's the stuff.. oh and by the way... position the hinge more 'forward' in the fairing than you think it should be, this well help the trailing edges stay together better... oh... and taper the trailing edges a litter bit to get a thinner edge. (Glad I called.)

With that, I marked the position of the rivet holes on the hinge and clamped it in place, drilled and clecod down one side. Countersunk the holes and then riveted the hinge on. Same for the other side, making sure all along there was no twist in the fairing by checking the marks.

Riveting the hinge on.

Can't put the fairings on with the no gear legs on the plane, so I jacked up the plane and set it on blocks and Sandi helped me stick the gear legs on. The tires are just a coupe of inches off the ground.

I slide the fairings on to see how they fit...

Looking good!

I had to make a trip to the hardware store to get some hose clamps. Started to think about how to clamp the 'fingers' at the top. The instructions say you can heat up the fairing and then clamp it down which will mold the finger to the shape of the leg. Option 2 was to do a fiberglass buildup in this area. I've heard of builders having these fingers crack and eventually break off, thus loosing the primary method of holding the gear legs in place. I had already decided that I wanted to epoxy a piece of aluminum in there to give that finger strenght. This actually turned out to be a good idea once I start looking at it. I cut out some 3/4" wide strips of aluminum and molded them to the shape of the gear leg.

Aluminum reinforcement fingers.

Time ran out for the evening, so will pick up tomorrow.

(Time: 7 hrs)

Front canopy on frame, side skirts riveted

I pulled the canopy off the frame and made some tweaks to the 'ears' to get them to sit better on the canaopy itself. Cleaned up the canopy and cleco'd it back in place. Put all the screws along the side and then riveted on the side skirt skins.

Canopy screws - Canopy is laying upside down in the picture... was easier to set some of the rivets this way.

Side skirts riveted.

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Mic Jacks, NACA Vents and spinning wheels..

After much deliberation and a call to Ray, I installed the headphone/mic jacks. My choice of location was up on top of the 906 baggage bulkhead just to the left and right of the tip-up channel support.

Mic/Headphone jacks

Looking for something else to do, I pulled out some ProSeal and glued on the NACA air vents.

NACA vents next day.

I've _really_ been spinning my wheels in the shop lately... just kinda wandering around dazed and confused... not sure what to do. My ACS order of fiberglass supplies arrived today... so guess I'll get started on the fairings and such. Still need to finish screwing the canopy to the frame.

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Center sub-panel

Spent most of the day at an auction.. picked up a table saw, dual-action sander and a few other goodies.

So.. all I managed to get done was to rivet in the center sub-panel and the modified panel support ribs.

(Time: 1 hrs)

ELT Antenna and canopy scratch removal

I spent most of the day being manly and slinging a chainsaw around. Now have a very large pile of trees to burn.

I did get out into the shop later...

Went back and forth on where to install the ELT antenna. Decided I wasn't going to mount it outside and tried to find a good place to mount it in the baggage area. Couldn't find a good place.. my antenna is slightly different than others I've seen, it has a molded plastic base. So I just broke down and did what Mel wanted me to do in the first place and mounted it on top of the fuselage, just aft of the 907 bulkhead. I made up a 3" square reinforcement plate and riveted in on, then drilled the 1/2" hole for the antenna. Ran some atenna cable back there and put on a BNC connector. I need to order some more BNC connectors.

Next I pulled out the rear canopy window to do some polishing on it. I slipped while sanding it and put some small scratches in it. I ordered the canopy polishing kit from Van's last week. I read the instructions and went to it. Even after the first polish using the SO-1, I was happy but I went ahead and did the SO-2 and SO-3 which get finer as you go. You can see the scratches if you look just right in the light, but otherwise they are hidden. I'm sure if you spent a lot of time on this, you could remove them completely.

Finished the night off be drilling out some rivets in the forward top skin that covers the panel area. I had set some of the rivets on the aft row while fitting the canopy.

(Time: 4 hrs)

Cable fairings and comm antenna wire

I riveted on the rudder cable fairings and then clamped the plastic tube in place with the adel clamp.

I pulled out my antenna wire and crimped on a BNC connector and run it down the center tunnel.

(Time: 1.5 hrs)

OFF-Topic: With gas prices hitting $2.30 here in the midwest, Sandi and I decided to drive 22 miles down the road to fill her 2002 Dodge Caravan up with $1.66 E85 fuel. Overall, it probably saved us $6. I think we are going to look into a fuel storage tank and have it delivered to the house. Saving $.60+ per gallon is considerable.

ON-Topic: This all started when I got an email from a friend about running ethenol in an aircraft. I did some searching on Google and came up with some very interesting stuff. There is a product called AGE85. Currently sells for just under $2.00/gal. There are all sorts of purported benefits and very little modification required to run it. I'm still doing some research on this. I've started a thread on the Lycoming Yahoo Group on the subject.

Painting and rudder cable fairings

Needed to paint the inside of the canopy gap strip so I can screw the canopy to the tip-up frame. I had some other parts that need some paint as well, so I setup to paint the gap strip, the seat backs needed an additional coat and the seat pans also needed some paint. Got that all done...

Pulled out the rudder cable fairings I had ordered a while back. I shaped them up a little and drilled the to the fuse. Dimpled and then primed the fuse and backs of the fairings. I'll rivet them on next time in the shop.

Fairings after shaping.

Drilled and cleco'd to the fuse.

(Time: 3 hrs; Total: 194.5)

Back from traveling...

Was in Washington DC last week until this past Sunday. ABF called yesterday to let me know I had a delivery.... it is my cowl from James Aircraft. I also got a letter in the mail when I got home from them. Some BRIEF instructions for installing it and a few drawings.

When I say BRIEF, the instructions have 6 steps to install the cowl. Uh-huh.. can't imagine it is that easy. I haven't found anyone yet who has detailed the install on their website. Could be fun.

Anyway.. I'm back and ready to get back at it.

Total time so far on finish kit... 191.5 hours

Spring cleaning... cowl arrived

Cowl was delivered today by ABF Freight. The weather has gotten nice here in the midwest, so I opened up the workshop and swept all the dust/dirt/etc. out and generally picked up the shop. Unboxed the cowl and gazed fondly at it. Decided to call it a night.. now real work done.

Bottom cowl
Top & bottom.