The plans specify that the aft end of the filter be roughly vertically aligned with the fuel selector outlet.  This requires the fuel line to jog backward before turning forward to enter the fuel filter.  The radius on my tubing bender is to large for this to work and still have room to push the fitting back to create the flare on the end.  Instead, I moved the filter and pump forward about two inches and fabricated a line with a simple 90º bend.  I’m hoping the stock Van’s fuel pump cover will still fit over the pump.  Otherwise, I’ll have to fabricate a custom cover.

I fabricated the mounting brackets as specified on the Andair plans.  I removed a section of the vertical portion of each of the mounting angles since I’ll be running quite a bit of wiring through this bay as well.  This is 1/8″ thick angle, so it’s still far stronger than it needs to be.  I could have probably used 1/16″ thick angle, but this is what the plans specify.

Here is the fuel pump screwed into place on the mounting brackets.  I still need to drill the floor stiffeners to the cover, but I needed to get the brackets in place so that I could drill through the angle clips on each end.  I need to order some MK1000-08 nutplates to use on these clips since regular K1000-08 nutplates are too long.

I fabricated a little drilling jig to ensure the holes were a fixed distance off the floor.  After some careful measurements to ensure I’d hit the clips on the ends of the mounting brackets, I drilled the floor stiffeners to the forward cover.

It looks like my measurements were accurate, I hit the center of each of the clips.  I’m waiting on some miniature nutplates from Aircraft Spruce, then these can be riveted permanently.

The forward two holes just go into the cover, so I installed a couple of K1000-08 nutplates there and then reinstalled the cover.

Now that the cover is in its final location, the two upper holes can be match drilled into the firewall recess.

I drilled and countersunk for NAS1097 rivets, but I can’t reach these with a squeezer so I’ll have to shoot these later.

I got started tonight by filing the edges of the aft canopy decks flush with the side of the fuselage and I finished dimpling all of the holes that attach them to the longerons.

Next, I clecoed the upper forward fuselage structure together.  The left most panel is the instrument panel.  The middle panel is the subpanel, and the firewall is on the right.  There are two large ribs that tie these pieces together as well as a couple of large gusset plates that tie the longerons to the subpanel.

Here is the back side of the instrument panel showing how the rib supports the panel.  Unfortunately, part of this rib will have to be cut away to make room for the SkyView display.

I have been playing with instrument panel layouts in ePanelBuilder, but I was unsure where the centerline of the seat is relative to the panel.  I measured this out and made a couple of marks on the panel.  I then got in the plane and spent a little time toying with layouts.  In this picture, the SkyView display is a little over an inch to the right of the centerline of the pilot’s seat, but I think I like it better there rather than directly in front of me since it provides room on the left of the display for a bank of switches and makes the display easier to reach with my right hand.  There is still plenty of room to the right for the radio stack, a Dynon D6 as a backup PFD, and the map box.

I have no idea why I decided to do this tonight, but I installed the fittings for the fuel tank vent lines into the side of the fuselage and torqued them down.  Here is the outside where the line from the fuel tank will attach.

And here is the inside.  A line will attach here and run up to the upper longeron, forward to the firewall and then back down to a fitting in the floor.

I also installed a couple of the same fittings through the firewall for the brake lines.  Here is the forward side of the firewall.  Lines will attach here and then run down the gear legs to the wheels.

Here is the aft side of the firewall.  These fittings face upward since the parking brake valve will be mounted above this point.

Here is roughly where I’m planning on mounting the parking brake valve.  This gives me a convenient point on the rib above to attach the parking brake cable.  I’m going to hold off installing this for a bit to make sure this mounting point doesn’t interfere with anything of the front of the firewall.

Here you can see that it’s a fairly straight shot from the parking brake to the fittings through the firewall.  I’ll fabricate solid aluminum lines to connect these two.