Installed Sniffle Valve, Oil Drain and Air Intakes

I installed the sniffle valve in the aft port in the intake manifold (the upper brass fitting).  This is a check valve that opens when on the ground to allow excess fuel or water that leaks into the engine manual to drain out of the bottom of the engine and onto the ground.  I also drained the preservative oil out of the engine and installed the quick drain plug into the sump and safety wired it.

I then mixed up some proseal and attached the air vents to the side of the fuselage.  I drilled a couple of holes for alignment purposes.  I’ll fill these in later with some filler.  A lot of builders pop rivet these on, but proseal is tenacious stuff and will hold these quite well.  This is the left side.

…and this is the right.

Tech Counselor Visit, Elevator Trim Wiring, Exhaust Heat Shields

My tech counselor, Brian Dal Porto, stopped by tonight to check out my progress.  The last time he stopped by was near the end of the wing construction which was about 19 months ago (holy crap, has it really been that long?).  He checked out my fuselage construction, as well as engine installation and wiring.  He said everything looks good and there wasn’t anything I needed to change which is great.

After he left, I took care of a couple of small tasks before heading in to get some work done for my day job.  First up, I ran a cable for the elevator trim.  This is a 5-conductor cable from Ray Allen that is specifically meant for wiring their trim systems.  It contains five 26AWG wires that match the colors of the wires coming out of the trim and position sensor boxes.  I was hoping that one 25′ cable would be enough to do both the aileron and elevator trim wiring, but it was quite a bit short.  I’m going to replace my flap position sensor wires with another piece of this, so another 20′ should be plenty for the aileron trim and flap position.  Here’s the wire where it comes out of the J1 connector on the VP-X (the five small wires that come out of the connector and go into the larger white cable.  You can’t see it, but there is a heat shrink label on the cable.

The cable runs down the forward center tunnel and under the copilot’s seat and through the right conduit and comes out here behind the baggage bulkhead.  There will be an adel clamp here securing this to the bulkhead as it runs up to the tail conduit (along with the tail position/strobe wires).

There’s a few extra feet of wire back here.  I’ll cut it to length when I mount the tail.

I also received a couple more 4″ exhaust heat shields.  I mounted one on the #4 pipe to protect the wires running through this area.

I also mounted two on the #1 pipe.  The first is just above the heat muff to protect the throttle cable.

The second is a little farther up the pipe to provide some protection for the alternator wires and fuel flow sensor.

Trimmed Aft End of Cowl

I trimmed the sides of the lower cowl and then sanded them so that they tuck in against the hinge (which I also drilled but didn’t get a picture of).  I drilled one hole through the top of each side into the hinge to lock the position of the lower cowl in place.

I then marked and trimmed the aft end of the top cowl.  This will need a little sanding, but it is enough to let it drop down against the hinge.

Unfortunately, there is still a gap along the sides.  The plans (and other builder’s websites) say these should overlap along the sides so that you can trim them both to get a perfectly straight joint.

The left side is even worse with a roughly 1/8″ gap down the entire side.

The fit at the front still looks great.  Here’s the lineup at the top.

And the lower point on the cowl lines up nicely with the spinner.  Clearly the front of the cowl is in the right spot and the back is pulled in as tight as it can go.  Time to chat with Van’s again about this.

Started Fabricating Vent Brackets and Worked on Cowl

I started fabricating one of the brackets that will be used to mount the air vents.  These are fabricated out of 0.063″ stock which is the same as the instrument panel.

Here’s how it fits in the plane.  You can see how it nestles nicely up against the instrument panel and the flange of the vent overlaps both.  I’ll cut off the lower right of the bracket at the small horizontal black line and let the bracket follow the curve of the vent around to the bottom.  I left the bracket a little tall on the left side for now since I had Classic Aero Designs fabricate the side panels to the original height of the vent brackets.  I don’t know if they’ve cut these parts yet, so I’ll see if they can still change them.  If so, I’ll cut this off straight.

I reinstalled the cowl so that I can continue the fitting.  I had previously put this on hold while Van’s evaluated whether the flanges on the cowl sides were cut too short but haven’t gotten back to it until now.

I had previously cut the aft edge of the bottom cowl to length, so I carefully lined up the cowl all around and drilled a couple of holes on each side to the stainless steel hinge to lock the bottom in position.

I put a work light inside the cowl and marked the approximate cut line on the sides.  It’s too late to run the cutoff wheel tonight, so this is a good place to stop.

Installed Cable Clamps and Aileron Trim Connector

I got an order from Avery Tools today with some cable clamps that can be attached with screws or pop rivets.  I’m using these in lieu of the adhesive cable clamps in areas where the detachment of the clamp could interfere with the controls.  I’ll likely end up installing these in any spot where it’s fine to drill a hole through the structure.  I really wish I knew about these back when I installed the conduit under the seats and baggage floors instead of the adhesive cable clamps.

I installed several of these along the forward center tunnel to keep the flap motor and flap position sensor wires away from the elevator pushrod.  Jeez, do I need to vacuum in here or what?

I also installed a set of these up the center baggage wall support to secure the network cable to the ADAHRS.

Finally, I slipped some sleeving over the wires to the aileron trim servo and installed a five position molex connector I picked up at Fry’s this morning.

Mounted Aileron Trim

I drilled the bracket shaft with a #53 bit and installed the cotter pin.  This is a snug fit, so there is zero slop in the bracket.

Here’s the whole mechanism assembled.  The servo pushes on the bracket and will turn it around the shaft.  Spring linkages will connect the other bracket arm to the control sticks to bias the neutral point.

Here’s a closeup of the linkage between the servo and the bracket.

The bushing block is bolted to the mounting flange with one #10 screw and one AN3 bolt through the holes I drilled yesterday.

The hole for the #10 screw was dimpled in the mounting flange and the bushing was countersunk since the seat pan gets installed right above this and there wouldn’t be clearance for a bolt head.  The other hole can just use a normal bolt since there are no space considerations.

Finally, I mounted the bracket between the seat ribs.  I had to remove the elevator pushrod to get the angle drill in here to drill the servo to the skin.

Started Aileron Trim

I replaced the wire from the starter contactor to the VP-X so that I can add protection for the wire close to the contactor.

I also got an order from Aircraft Spruce with a replacement cabin/baggage light.  The one I had had both red and white lights, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m using all white and green interior lights, so I ordered this unit.  I wish this was offered in a natural aluminum anodized finish since this will be the only black anodized aluminum in the cockpit, but it’s not that big of a deal.

Afterward, I decided to get started on the aileron trim.  First up is to fit the bushing block into the bracket.

I radiused the corner so that it nestles tight into the bracket.

Next, I used the sanding drum on my Dremel to notch the bushing so that a cotter pin can be inserted through the shaft.

I drilled various holes in the bracket on the right so that it can be installed between the seat ribs.  I also cut down the shaft of the bracket so that it sits below the surface of the bushing.  This is because the open end of the shaft shown here sits up against the bottom of the bracket on the right.

Installed Starter Annunciator Input to VP-X

I spent most of the day working, but I had a little time so I snuck out to the garage for a bit. I cleaned up some of the wire runs and installed the wire from the starter contactor to the VP-X so that I’ll get a “starter engaged” annunciation on the EFIS.

I put a 1kΩ resistor inline with the wire.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see the note that this was to protect the wire and should be close to the contactor, so I’ll have to replace this wire.