Corrected subpanel rib attachment

I removed the panel support ribs and reattached them using angles that face outboard which clears the way for any 'deep' radio's I may have.

The right brake line was still leaking at the fitting where it exits the fuselage. I did some more tweaking on the line and tightened up the fitting a little more. It hadn't leaked any more at the end of the night, so I think my brake system is now leak free!

Starting to work a bit on the electrical, so you may have to jump back and forth between this log and the electrical log.

PS - I forgot to mention.. I received my AIRCRAFT REGISTRATION! Received it this past Saturday. Paperwork only rejected once for not printin our names underneath our signatures.

(Time: 1.5 hrs)

Brake system, wingtip ribs, vor antenna

Up at 6:00 am and was in the shop around 6:30ish.

I ordered some of the wing walk material from Ray Allen Co. and ordered an extra piece to cover my brake pedals with. None of the 'spray-on' products looked very good. So I cut out and stuck some on the pedals, then let them bake in the sun all morning.

Brake pedals in place with non-skid on them.

I pulled out the wingtips again and finished installing the two ribs that go in them. I also positioned and drilled the Archer VOR antenna inside the left wingtip. Pretty easy. I'll glue it down later.

VOR antenna in place.

After a short break to fix the lawnmower that required a trip to the hardware store, where I picked up an oil can, I started in on the brake system. I went around and tightened up all the fittings first. I just knew that I wouldn't have any leakes or air bubbles and this would be easy. (Hehehe)

I connected a short piece of tubing to the oil can and the oil line fitting and started pumping away. Hey.. this isn't bad! I pumped until the line was all pink. When I disconnected the tubing from the fitting, some of the fluid drained back out which left an air bubble at the top near the reservoir. Ugh! Ok... lets do the other side first. Repeated procedure on other side, this time pumping enough fluid to get the level in the brake reservoir higher so that when a bit drained out, it wouldn't suck air. Cool.. done. Back to other side to push a little more fluid in to push out the air at the top. I had Sandi help me pump more in until the resevoir was full.

Oil can hooked up.

Ok.. that was easy enought. Let's start working on the brake pedals. I had previously had them mounted and all the hardware was there, so it was just a matter of climbing in the fuse and bolting them up. As soon as I started fussing with the first pedal and actuated the brake cylinder a couple of times.. POOF air bubbles!! Arggh! The cylinders had trapped some air in them and as soon as I played with them, they appeared. Dman. Oh well. I finished installing the brake pedals and getting all the cotter pins in. It was a pain doing all this in the fuse, laying on my stomach, sweating my butt of. (Was 96 deg. in the shop).

Brake lines.

Both brake lines now had bubbles in them from working on the brake pedals. I also discovered a leak at the parking brake valve in the 90 degree fitting. So I drained all the fluid out of the left brake line, put one more turn on the fitting and filled the line back up, making sure I tapped on the cylinder to get the air out. I pumped more fluid through the right line to push all the air out of it as well but didn't need to drain it. I discovered another leak on the right brake line at the fitting where it exits the bottom of the fuselage. The line as bent a bit at the collar, so apparently it was seating well. I flexed the line a bit to get it straight. I need to check on this tomorrow to see if it is still leaking or not.

So the brake system is done! Hopefully I won't have any more leaks but I think I'll have to tweak that fitting at the right light again.

Here are my tips for putting the fluid in:

Make sure all of your fittings are tight before starting.

Pump enough fluid to get past the first brake cylinder, then tap on it several times, wiggle it around, pump a little more. This will help get the air out of it.

Repeat above when you get past the 2nd cylinder.

Pump enough fluid to fill the reservoir about the fitting level, so that if any drains out, it won't suck air.

Have lots of towels/rags ready, it is a messy job.

Mike S. noted an adel clamp that holds the engine breather tube that needs to be installed on the firewall, so I drilled the hole for that while I had easy access.

Later on I was playing around trying to find a good location for my fuse blocks and realized I caused myself some problems by the way I riveted on the sub-panel ribs. I put the angles on the inboard side when I should have put them on the ouboard side. They way I have them now will interfere with any deep radio I might have. So I'll have to drill these out and move the angles.

Getting closer to actually doing some electrical work.

(Time: 8 hrs)

Kansas City Center (ARTCC) Tour

On Saturday, our EAA chpater got a tour of the Kansas City Center (ARTCC) facility. Our tour guide turned out to be Nathan Larson, RV-9A owner/flyer. He is a supervisor for one of the sectors. It was a very cool tour! Not quite what one would expect. First we got a presentation about the facility in general, then visited the weather guy. Each facility has a 24 hour meteorolgist on duty. Then we talked to the guys at TMU (Traffice Management Unit), they are responsible for the efficient flow of traffic through their area. (It is freaking amazing how many airplanes are flying at once! Saturday morning at 10:30 there were 7,000+ airplanes in the air.. and that was just IFR traffic.)

Next we actually got to sit down next to a controller and jack in! This I didn't not expect. The controller was very nice and spent a lot of time telling me what he was seeing on the screen and how he was going to route traffic. My guy had the space just ouside of the Class B at MCI. There was a radar outage near Topeka that made things a bit interesting. Their screens were maybe 3 feet tall by 2 feet wide.. no joke, they were huge!

Each ARTCC is split into smaller areas, and each has a name. They are also split into high altitude and low altitude. All the controllers serving a certain area are located in a large 'cube'.

It was a very cool tour and I highly encourage anyone to take one if they get the opportunity.

Nose gear fairing

I riveted/epoxied on the forward U-813 brackets on the nosewheel pant. I pulled out the nose gear leg fairing which I had previously done some trimming on but hadn't installed the hinge, so I did that. I guess that means that all the gear leg fairings are done except fit/finish. My order of 3M Flowable Finishing Putty arrived yesterday. This was recommended on the Sam James Fiberglass Video. It is specifically designed for filling fiberglass pin holes. I may play with it some this weekend.

I've slowly been thinking about my electrical system and will probably start a new log for that soon.

(Time: 1.5 hrs)

Lot more fairing work...

Got a slow start today and didn't move fast all day long but I did get a lot accomplished. First 30 minutes spent cleaning up and putting tools away. I think I had nearly every tool out laying around somewhere.

I did some final fitting and cutting on the pilot side wheel pant/gear leg fairing/intersection fairing. I confirmed that I can get the hinge pin out by taking off the wheel pant. Here are a few photo's of the pilot side wheel area.

Inside of intersection fairing. You can see the gear leg fairing sticking through a bit.

Looking inside. This is with the front of the wheel pant off. You can see the brake line routing.

Looking at the back side. You can see the hinge pin sticking down. Plenty of area to get it in/out.

Looking down from top.

Pilot side is down minus filling/finishing of the fairings. I'm saving the upper intersection fairings until I get the wings back on.

I slid the fuselage over and repeated the process on the passenger side. I noticed that the passenger side intersection fairing fit much better on this side. My guess is that the pilot side wheel pant isn't lined up exactly as it should be or that Van's mold is off for the pilot side. My guess... my wheel pant isn't perfectly in trail. I may measure some day to see but probably won't do anything about it unless it it way off.

Int. fairing in position. I used the bottom hole on the aft bracket as a mounting point. Right now I have a screw stuck in there just to hold things in place.

More fitting. Here I've drilled some holes into the gear leg fairing and cleco'd them. Once I take it off, I can position the int. fairing on the gear leg fairing using this holes while I bond the two together. Also note the white circle which is the 2nd screw hole I'll use to hold the fairing on. There is already a nutplate there for holding the two pant halves together.

Fairings bonded. Here I've bonded the int. fairing with gear leg faring using my homemade flox/epoxy mixture. I used cleco's to hold it together until the epoxy was set. I'll need to do some serious sanding/finishing in this area.

I didn't get pictures of it but on the bottom edge of the int. fairing, I drilled a hole on the aft end right below the screw on the top side. I also put another screw along the seam of the two pant pieces and put a nutplate on it. It serves double duty of holding the int. fairing on and the two pant pieces together. I may put one more scew on the front area to hold it down for a total of 5. I have to say that I'm real happy with how well the int. fairings fit on the wheel pant and also with my idea of bonding them to the gear leg fairing. Once I get it all sanded and smooth, it should look real good.

I finished the evening off by positioning and drilling the forward U-813 brackets to the nosewheel pant. I'll rivet/epoxy them on the next time I'm out in the workshop.



(Time: 6 hrs)

Nosewheel fairing and intersection fairings

It's 2:57 and I'm in for a quick break.

Sent an email to Jerry about the nosewheel fairing. He said he had the same problem and that you should use the dimensions on the plans and not the dimples on the pant as the instructions suggest. Hmm... so this morning I looked and sure enough there is a 16" dimension from the aft end to the center of the hole. The 'dimples' were about 1/4" to far forward, which is just enough to cause all sorts of interference. So be warned. I'm attempting to patch all the holes I put in the fairing so I can salvage what I have. A new wheel pant is $100.

Working on pilot side intersection fairing now. I have the gear leg fairing aligned in trail and have fitted the intersection fairing. I've decided to bond the int. fairing to the gear leg fairing. Most builders bond the int. fairing to the wheel pant and split the fairing along the same line. I like this idea better. It does mean that the wheel pant has to come off in order to get the gear leg fairing off... but why would I ever take off the gear leg fairing anyway?? Only thing behind it is the brake line.

Aligning the gear leg fairing.

Back to work...

Put a call into Steve W. who built a Long-Eze and knows a thing or two about fiberglass work. I asked him the best way to bond two fiberglass parts (intersection fairing to gear leg fairing). He said mix some flox in with your epoxy and make sure you rough up the surface.

Since I didn't have any flox, I created some by cutting up strands of fibeglass cloth. With the fairings in position on the plane, I drilled and cleco'd the two together and then pulled it off, roughed things up, mixed up my epoxy/flox and bonded them together. I think this will work out good.

Intersection fairing bonded to gear leg fairing. (Needs lots of cleanup.)

I patched the holes in the nosehweel fairing this morning and it setup enough to work with, so I drilled new holes and mounted the U-813 brackets on, this time in the right place. I temporary tested the fit on the nosewheel and all seems well. It needs to setup over night since I used some epxoy again to hold the brackets on.

Tomorrow I'll finish up the pilot side gear leg fairing and get started on the passenger side. Will also try and get the nosewheel fairing done if possible.

(Time: 8 hrs)

Nosewheel pant woes

Was all set to get the nosewheel pant done tonight. I mounted the aft half to the nosewheel and started trimming the front cap. It seemed like I had to cut a pretty deep slot to get it to fit. Once I got it trimmed to fit, it was rubbing on the WD-631 piece. I fiddled around trying to get it not to rub but then it would hit on the bolt that holds the WD-631 to the axle. Ugh!

It appears that the dimples marking the axle centerline weren't very exact. The wheel pant is positioned too far aft and it is also lilted to the passenger side a little. I can only conclude the dimples are wrong, which I doubt Van's will admit to. A new nosewheel pant is $100.

(Time: 1.5 hrs)

Wheel pants

I alodined the other two nose wheelpant brackets and then riveted on the two brackets I drilled last night. I also mixed up some epoxy/filler to put under the flanges of the bracket to help hold the bracket on. The wheel pants take a beating and I've heard of rivets pulling through the fiberglass over time, so this is insurance to prevent or prolong the life of the pant.

The fwd portion of the main wheel pants were cured where I put some layups, so I drilled those holes and countersunk them for the CS washers. I went ahead and mounted the main wheel pants. I also put on the gear leg fairings and just slipped the Van's intersection fairings on for kicks. I need to align the gear leg fairings, then I can work on the intersection fairings.

Wheel pants mounted.

With gear leg and instersection fairings...

The upper intersection fairing.

(After looking at the Van's fairings... the quality isn't that good. I need to look at a Fairings, Etc. versions to see how they compare... Ray has a set he didn't get to use on his RV-9A)

(Time: 1.5 hrs)

Van's response to bolt close to tire

".032 definitely is not enough clearance. You could grind the bolt down, you could also put a nother couple of washers under the head so it doesn't poke through the weldment so far."

Nose wheel pant

Picked up some 3/8" rod and washers/nuts on the way home. Before you start playing with the mounting of the nosewheel pant, read instructions first.

You start off by drilling a 3/8" hole on each side of the wheel pant (back half). There are small dimples in the pant to indicate where to drill. Be carefull when drilling, the bit wants to catch on the fiberglass just as it goes through.

3/8" hole drilled.

Next you need to insert the threaded rod into one of the holes and then attach the U-813C bracket to it using the washers/nuts. Instructions say to do one at a time but I did both.

View showing how the rod threads, holding the brackets.

Different perspective.

With the brackets held in place, you rotate them until the fit as well as possible against the inside and then drill the 4 holes for rivets. I also countersunk the holes while I had the brackets on.

(Bonus picture I knew that Dremel was good for something!)

After removing the brackets, I alumi-prepped them and got two of them alodined before bedtime. While they were soaking, I enlarged the 3/8" hole to 7/8" so you can get a socket inside to tighten the axle bolt. 7/8" is probably a bit larger than it needs to be (my socket was 25/32") but I thought finding a hole plug of 7/8" would be easier. (Found a "snap in steel hole plug" on McMaster website but don't know what "Trade Size" means. Part #8087K12. Going to call them.)

7/8" hole for socket

In position on wheel.

(Time: 2 hrs)

Stand, Fiberglass, Wheel Pants

Kinda bounced around the shop tonight.. took awhile to get motivated.

I pulled the fuselage stand back in to the shop and got the fuse back on it so I could finish the pants/fairings. I pulled out the main wheel pants to see where I left off and then did a 3-layer layup on the forward pieces where some screws go and the material needed to be thicker for countersinking. I pulled out a piece of 220 sandpaper and started sanding some of the high spots from being messy on the aft half of the wheel pants... and boy did it show all the pinholes!



(All those white dots you see are actually small holes in the surface of the fiberglass. You have to get them filled in, otherwise they stand out when you paint.)

I grabbed the nosewheel pant brackets (U-813's) and filed/sanded the edges. I bolted them on to the nosewheel and then I noticed this: Almost touching. I emailed Van's but Ray said to stick a couple more washers on it. There is already a lock washer. (Mel?)

I was trying to slide the aft part of the wheel pant but it wouldn't go over the brackets, it was too narrow. So I started actually reading the instructions to see how all this goes together. Looks like I need to rivet the brackets to the wheel pant first and then I can slide it on. You need some 3/8" rod to do this, so I'll pick some up tonight.

(Time: 2 hrs)

Prosealing....

Put the wings up on the table and prosealed on the tank access covers. Since I had the proseal out and made up, I also had Sandi help me rivet on the firewall recess.

Firewall recess

Gooped some proseal on the brake reservoir where it penetrated the firewall.

(Time: 3 hrs)

Project visit and wingtip nutplates done!!

I highly recommend having a project visitor, it forces you to do cleanup (much like your wife does to the house when visitors come) and it gets the building juices flowing again.

Today's visitor was Dave and Hillary with there new baby Phoebe. Dave is an aspiring pilot and wants to build an RV-9A in the future. He's never seen an RV under construction, so this was his chance. He also needed Hillary to hear from my wife Sandi that he wasn't that crazy. :-) It was a good visit and it turns out that Dave and I have similar pasts and probably crossed paths at one point in the past. Keep the dream alive Dave!

Prior to Dave coming out, I spent some time cleaning up, putting tools away and generally getting things to look better. I worked on removing the coax cable from the back of the KX-155 tray I bought and did some general cleanup on it.

Started back to riveting the nutplates on the wingtips and got those all finished and screwed the tips on to the wings to check the fit. One wing had the aileron on, so I trimmed the tip to remove any interference.

Wingtip on!

We've had monsoon like weather here is KS lately. 6" of rain last week and we've had 3" so far in the last 2 days. (Just checked the gauge.. 2.5" last NIGHT).

(Time: 4 hrs)

Project status...

I feel that if I don't post something often, I'm letting my readers down... I know how I feel when the people I follow don't post anything regularly. :-) (If it goes more than a week, I'm usually checking in to see what's going on.)

Soooo... the last couple of weeks have been pretty tumultuous and there certainly hasn't been much progress on the project itself. I think we have recovered from the shock of having a bad crank and I'm still working on my accessory case woe's and feeling disenchanted by some of the aviation vendors out there. Allen located a used crankshaft for me for $2800. I need to send my mags out to get the 500hr inspection done. The plan is to do the engine seminar in late September.

I recently picked up an Grand Rapids EIS-6000 that I sent to GRT to have reprogrammed into an EIS-4000. Sandy called this week to let me know it was done and ready to ship back. I ordered some sensors and a manual to go with it. It should arrive this week. This wasn't my first choice in engine monitors but the deal was too good to pass up and it does everything I need it to.

On the avionics front, I have a good start on that. I have a KX155 and KLN-89B. I need a transponder, audio panel (if I elect not to use the intercom I have) and a 209A Indicator, which could wait. However, after looking through the wiring manual for the radio/gps I have, I've concluded that I'm way out of my league. I want to find someone who's maybe wired up these units before that I can sit down with and at least do the wire mapping. I can make the harnesses myself, just need someone to help me say wire A connects to wire B.

On the instruments side, I need an altimeter and some sort of TC. For the TC, I'm planning on the TruTrak Pictorial Pilot. I have the rest of the instruments. I did buy a replacement panel from Bill Repucci, who used the Affordable Panel setup. I decided I need to move the instrument holes up higher on the pilot side so I can get switches installed underneath of them.

From an airframe standpoint...

I'm currently in progress on the wingtips and have the nutplates I need to finish those.

I think I'm going to try and position the fuselage in the shop so I can get one wing on at a time and rig the flaps/ailerons.

I need to get back to the fiberglass on the gear legs.. the nose wheel pant needs finished, I need to get the gear leg fairings finished and work on the intersection fairings.

I'll need to mount the tail pieces so I can work on the empennage fairing and maybe rig up the elevators/rudder.

I need to install the fiberglass tips on the empennage.. most are made already, just need some filler, then get riveted on.

Need to finish the canopy... the fiberglass fairing along the front edge.

Install the tank access cover plates for the final time.

Bad news....

Read more here...