I positioned and drilled the wear blocks.

Here you can see that the opening in the wear block keeps the stainless steel cable away from the aluminum.

The holes that were match drilled in the lower baggage wall need K1000-08 nutplates installed so that the upper wall can be screwed to the lower wall.

The lower wear block gets blind riveted to the lower wall with a couple of spacers made from 0.040″ AL sheet.  I didn’t take a picture, but the upper wear blocks are riveted to the upper wall in the same fashion.

The seat backs attach to the seat bottoms with sections of P3 hinge material.  There are three pieces of hinge attached to the seat bottom, and one piece attached to the seat back.  That along with the adjustment mechanism at the top gives you a number of choices for the seat position.  First up, I cut eight pieces of hinge material 15.5″ long.

The six hinge pieces that attach to the seat bottom need the center two eyelets removed so that the hinge pins can be inserted from the middle.

The holes were laid out and drilled on one of the pieces according to the plans.  This was then used as a template to drill the other five pieces of hinge.

The hinges were then clamped to the seat bottoms at the position specified by the plans.

The seat bottoms were then match drilled to the hinges.

The aft hinge overlaps several holes that are used to attach the seat bottoms to the seat ribs.  The hinge is back drilled to these holes so that all three pieces can be blind riveted together.

The hinge pieces are then riveted to the seat bottom with AN470AD4-4 rivets (skipping the holes that will also rivet in conjunction with the seat ribs).  I’ve seen a few builders use LP4-3 here, but the plans only specify those for attaching the seat bottoms to the seat ribs.

The aft flap cover needs a bracket fabricated to attach it to the floor.

The top of the front flap cover needs this little bracket fabricated to tie the cover to the F-705 upper channel.  I’m really glad I have a bending brake; it made bending this just trivial.

The lower end of the front cover needs this attach points riveted.

The front cover also needs a series of nutplates installed down both sides.  These will be used to attach the flap side covers.

I primed and riveted the upper motor mount reinforcing plate to the forward flap cover channel.

I also riveted the lower attach bracket to the aft cover channel.

Here is the plate that I bent on the bending brake earlier.  It’s riveted to forward flap cover and gets a couple of one-leg nutplates for attaching it to the upper F-705 channel.

I installed the forward flap channel into the plane and temporarily bolted the flap motor push rod to the weldment.  I couldn’t help running the motor up and down a bit to watch it work.

After ensuring the inner bolt support was properly aligned, I match drilled it to the channel.  It’s almost 2 a.m., so this is a good stopping point.

After fitting and drilling the rear flap cover, I fit and drilled the side covers.  This totally encloses the flap motor assembly since the seats fit right up against this.

The rear flap cover gets a bunch of nutplates that are used to attach it to the F-705 upper channel and to attach the side covers to it.

After removing everything back down to the ribs, I vacuumed out the shavings and installed some adhesive zip-tie mounts.  I then used zip-ties to support the conduit between the bulkheads.  I finally got a chance to try the zip-tie gun I picked up from Harbor Freight last year.  This thing is great; it automatically tightens the zip-tie to a consistent tension (which is adjustable) and then cuts it off flush so that there is no sharp point sticking out to scratch you.

I also installed some adhesive mounts along the conduit aft of F-706 and trimmed off the front a bit.

Before installing the seat pans, I need to take care of a couple of final things that will be more difficult with them in place.  I’m installing the primary com antenna under the pilot’s seat, one bay outboard of the center bay with the crotch strap.  I drew a centerline on the floor in the bay and then positioned the template far enough aft that the coax can’t interfere with the aileron push tube.

I drilled the holes out to the specified size.

Here is what the antenna will look like installed.  This bay is very narrow, and the antenna mounts with a doubler plate, so I’m not going to add any additional reinforcement.

I fit the forward baggage side covers, then removed them to install nutplates on the bottom flange,  The baggage floor will screw down to this flange,

Here you can see how the side cover fits.  The bottom flange fits under the baggage floor and the other three side screw down to side bulkheads.  The flap torque tube will stay exposed in the plane, but it rotates in place, so nothing can catch on it.

Now that everything has been match drilled, the nutplates on the aft side covers can be installed.

I got an order from SteinAir the other day which included a bunch of wire I’ll need to start wiring components in the plane.  I ordered about 30′ of RG-400 which is enough to do most if not all of the antennas in the aircraft.  I also purchased an adjustable RG-59 three blade coax stripper off eBay.  After a bunch of test cuts, I managed to get the stripper adjusted for RG-400 so that it perfectly cuts all of the various component of the cable without nicking any wires.  I then installed a male BNC connector on the end to test the crimper I bought.

The crimper I have has interchangeable dies.  I installed the hex dies and crimped the gold plated center pin to the stranded center conductor with the 0.068″ die (RG-58 and RG-400 both have stranded center conductors for use in the high vibration environment of an aircraft compared with the solid center conductor of RG-59 that is typically used in home cable tv systems.  It’s also 50? instead of 75? impedence).  Next, the connector body is pushed onto the pin until it clicks into place.  Finally, the ferrule is slide up tight against the connector body and crimped with the 0.213″ die.

My wheels and tires/tubes showed up today.  I’m using the Grove wheels which have a much higher heat energy absorption than the stock wheels and are actually lighter because they’re magnesium.  I also went with the Condor 6 ply tires and Michelin AirStop tubes because both were highly recommended on vansairforce.net.  The tire on the left shows the outside of the wheel.  The one on the right shows the inside with the disc brake.

I also ordered the Grove parking brake.

The wheels came with the brake cylinders and mounting brackets.

I have been trying to decide between the Hookers at $410/seat (with the rotary latch) and the Crow at $160/seat for quite some time.  Safety wise, I think they’re comparable, but there are several drawbacks with the Crows.  There are only four colors of webbing to chose from as well as four colors of pads to chose from, none of which match my interior very closely.  Also, the rotary latch is quite thick and I’m worried that it will interfere with the stick.  The Hookers come in 14 colors, with 20 color choices for pads and trim, and the rotary latch is much thinner.  The only drawback is the price.  What finally clinched it for me is that I found out that Classic Aero Designs (who will be making my interior) sells the Hookers and will make matching leather pads using the same material that my seats are made of.  With that decision made, I went ahead and drilled/reamed a 1/4″ hole, 1/2″ below the outer holes in each crotch strap bracket.  I can’t use the stock Van’s hole position because the Hooker brackets are longer than the Van’s brackets.

I also primed and riveted on the inner flap motor mount bracket and bolted the flap motor in place.  This bolt is secured with a cotter pin since you can’t torque it down since that would bind the motor and it needs to pivot on this bolt.  I used some TriFlow lubricant here to keep everything moving smoothly.  This is the same lubricant that I will be using on all of the rod ends throughout the plane.

I decided to go ahead and install the seat belt cables and partially bolt the bracket in place.  The middle of the three AN3 bolts has been torqued and sealed.  The other two would interfere with side rivets, so they’ll be installed after the top is riveted on.  I also put the AN4 bolt that attaches the cable and torqued/sealed it.

I did this now, because it was trivial to ensure that the cable was aligned with the baggage wall pass through. If I waited to do this after installing the top skin, I’d be climbing back in the tail to tweak the alignment.

I installed the baffle in the vertical portion of the front cover (just below where the air vents are in the cover).  I didn’t get a picture of it, but it needs to be match drilled and riveted along with a handful of nutplates.

I also installed the fuel selector mounting bracket and cover that ties the bracket and lower cover together.

I was planning on cutting off the angled triangular portion since I’m not using the manual elevator trim.  I noticed however that that would leave a large gap between the fuel selector bracket and the vertical cover.  Instead, I flipped the bracket over and will cut off the triangular flange slightly forward of the bend to cover the gap.

Since the lower portion of the vertical cover has the forward face removed for the fuel pump, I won’t use the lower two #19 holes to tie the two pieces together.  This means I can move the lower cover back to eliminate the gap between the lower cover and the spar forward covers.  I started trying to lay out the holes through the floor stiffeners that attach the lower cover, but the aft holes will also attach the fuel pump mounting bracket, so I want to make sure that it position first.

The Andair fuel selector valve intlets can be installed in any cardinal orientation and are held in place with four stainless steel screws.  I used some fuel lube to lubricate the o-rings, and them installed the inlets facing down.

After installing the stainless steel screws, a punch is used to deform the screw into a recess to prevent it from backing out.

I drilled the fuel selector mounting bracket for the fuel selector by first drilling a 1″ hole inthe middle.  I purchased a large unibit knockoff from Harbor Freight a few weeks ago to make larger holes like this.  Unfortunately, it is a complete piece of shit and took several minutes to enlarge this hole from 7/8″ to 1″.  After drilling the large hole, the valve was positioned and the three outer holes are drilled for the mounting screws.

Finally, K1000-08 nutplates can be installed on the valve and the valve can be installed on the mounting bracket.  I spent a little time trying to bend a 3/8″ fuel line to connect the fuel selector outlet to the fuel pump, but I don’t think I can bend the line according to the plans since the bend radius is tighter than my bender allows.  This probably means that I’ll need to install the fuel pump slightly forward of the specified location.