PropJock

10/28/11 2.6 hours, 530.3 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1143.0

Made the cuts required to fit the new base that the fuel pump rests on to the center tunnel cover. I installed the platenuts to secure both parts to the fuselage floor. Van’s isn’t exactly “cheap” but they certainly are frugal. You need four platenuts to secure each part. You have to cut two of the platenuts off, so you’ll need six more. Van’s sends you four and I guess he assumes you won’t use the others. In my case I drilled them out and reused them. Two extra platenuts would cost 96 cents retail.

I mounted the fuel pump and filter and removed the rudder trim cable. I still need to assemble the cover for the parts (as in riveting it together) and install more platenuts to secure the cover to tunnel and fuel selector mount. After that, I’m ready to start plumbing. Woohoo.

I’ve been reading on about plumbing the brakes and fuel lines. It appears that these part are among the most technically challenging to do correctly and also have the greatest risk to life and limb if done incorrectly. I plan to have my work carefully inspected by someone who understands what the parts should look like. It seems fortunate to me that I’ve done this research – more than just about any other part of the construction. This is part of the “educational” aspect of the build.

10/26/11 0.5 hours, 527.7 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1140.4

I discovered, about a month ago, that fuel injected engines need a high pressure pump and filter. I just knew this wasn’t going to be a $50 item and it wasn’t. $660 + shipping and handling later, the pump and filter arrived. I spent hours reading the shrunk down drawings trying to figure out how the plumbing fit together and how the new pieces fit together. The mounting kit requires some pretty substantial modifications to the center tunnel cover, the box the fuel selector and manual elevator trim rest on and the angle that the trim control sits. I spent thirty minutes stripping the protective plastic off and assembling the housing, and marking the cuts I needed to make in the tunnel. Maybe I was premature in having Steve do the painting…or maybe I need to invite him back to do some more.

10/23/11 3.6 hours, 527.2 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1139.9

My son-in-law Dennis and a friend, Gus, came over and helped me remove the wings so I could drill two holes on either side of the plane; one for the fuel line and one to vent the gas tank. I spent about an hour disconnecting everything holding the wings to the fuselage…and one of the lower bolts on each side was a real challenge to get out. When Gus arrived we started and for the most part the job went smoothly. Between Dennis and Gus following directions and figuring out how to get the task done, I think the actual time spent pulling, drilling, and reinstalling the wings was 45-50 minutes. Teamwork!

After a little lunch I went back to work fitting the vent lines only to discover that the 37 degree flaring tool I bought used on Van’s Air Force was really a 45 degree flaring tool. Not suitable for aircraft work. This was my second flaring tool. Someone borrowed and never returned my first tool. I’ve borrowed a tool to use this week.

After that I gave up and thought about where to mount my AHRS (Attitude, Horizon, Reference System). No decision yet. I also need to mount the magnetometer and I’m thinking out in the wing will be a good place. The instructions said the AHRS should be mounted in the cabin to reduce the risk of condensation. There’s not a lot of places in the cabin. I’m wondering if there’s a place behind the panel and wondering how much EM the radios will be giving off. I’ve also considered putting in the aft fuselage.

10/21/11 1.7 hours, 523.6 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1136.3

Took care of some small stuff and did some prototype work on my fly rod case rack. Got the stainless steel piece with the nut, that holds the rudder cable in place, riveted to the cover plate.

10/19/11 3.2 hours, 521.9 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1134.6

Wow, has it been 12 days since I worked on the plane? Life has been busy with a funeral, and a four day visit to celebrate a good friend’s 65th birthday. The funny part of that was, almost everyone I met said, “Oh, you must be the guy building a plane in his basement.” They said it like ***I*** was the crazy one. For heavens sake, yes I am the one building an airplane in the basement and they’re not. Exactly how is it that I am the crazy one?

Anyway, I finally got the last couple of rivets out of the servo mount plate for the pitch autopilot. After cleaning things up I figure out how to mount the thing so the servo doesn’t go “over-center” and was able to salvage basically everything. Here’s a shot of me testing the aft travel of the servo. Note that this is NOT a final install. I know the jam nut is not tight and there’s no safety wire on the bolts that need it.

And here’s a shot of the forward travel.

And a finished shot after I riveted the plate on and safety wired the bolts.

And a different angle that shows the washers and spacers. This is similar to the Dynon installation.

Finally, I got to thinking about what I need to do to close up the wings and decided to see what I could do with the Gretz heated pitot. Oddly enough, the mounting tube and the pitot don’t fit together. It is sloppy manufacturing which is a shame for a grossly over-priced part ($500+). Even more odd is the directions make some sorry excuse and say not to worry you can fix it. Of course I can fix it. I’m building the plane but why should I buy stuff that needs to be fixed to begin with? Because there are few other options.

I spent about a half an hour filing the pitot tube to fit the bracket. I also discovered I have a hole in the wing for Van’s pitot tube – not heated and cheesy looking (but it is inexpensive and works well). What I discovered it my outside air temperature (OAT) sensor fits that hole perfectly. And here’s what the Gretz Aero heated pitot tube looks like after it’s been filed to fit the mounting tube.

10/7/11 1.5 hours, 528.7 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1131.4

After installing the pitch servo without instructions from GRT, I discovered that in the rearward position (up elevator) the servo went well past center (i.e., over-center). Not good. The servo arm isn’t supposed to go past about 60 degrees of travel either way. So I spent an hour and a half trying to drill out rivets. What a pain and not a good angle.

10/5/11 1.9 hours, 527.2 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1129.9

Last week I noticed some rubbing between the elevator and the horizontal stabilizer as it approached the full up position. I couldn’t see a thing that could be rubbing but the noise was undeniable. It was practically impossible to feel so I knew the parts were just brushing each other for the last part of the travel. It bugged me enough to get my wife to look at it and she confirmed the problem but couldn’t see what the cause was.

Yesterday, I carefully examined the whole structure and noticed the rubbing was somewhere inboard on the left side and outboard on the right side. I started removing bolts to see if I could identify the source of the interference. I could make the left side better by removing the inboard hinge bolt and I could almost make the right side rubbing go away by removing the outboard hinge bolt. Ultimately, I removed each side individually and turned the rod end bearings at these locations out. The right side took about a turn and the left side either one and half or two turns. I then remounted the elevators and tested with just the center bearing and the offending hinge in. No noise. The parts were moving freely. Using an inspection mirror I adjusted the non-offending rod end bearing hinge points to line up with the hinges. That took some trial and error but when I got it right, I was amazed at how easily the bolts slid into place. When I finally had everything connected there was no play, no noise, and everything moved very smoothly. Problem solved.

After finishing that problem solving I started drilling out rivets to mount the roll axis AP servo. They’re in a moderately awkward place to access for careful drilling. Photos when I finish the task.

No build time.

After several years of trying to decide between a TruTrak autopilot and a Trio Avionics autopilot, I finally decided. I purchased a Grand Rapids Technology AP. Why? Well, I have a dual GRT Horizon EFIS going in the plane and now that GRT is selling an AP I get a huge return on my investment. For about $1,900 I got the servos, the mounting hardware, and the wiring for an AP that will do anything I could ever want. I believe the TruTrak AP with the same capability would cost my about $4,500. The wiring and mounting hardware arrived last week and the servos arrived today.

Two AP servos. One for roll and one for pitch. Both connect to my GRT Horizon HX.

Once installed and operational, I should be able to do anything and everything short of take off and land. Rumor has it there’s a steep learning curve but from what I’ve read in the manuals, it looks pretty straight forward. Time will tell how many of the bells and whistles I actually use but my intent is to learn to use the capabilities to serve my flying interests.

Before sorting out the installation of the servos I spent time diagnosing a minor “bind” issue with the elevator. As near as I can tell I need to adjust one of the rod end bearings on the left elevator and the problem should be resolved. I hope it really is that easy!

10/2/11 2.8 hours, 525.3 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1128.0

It was a lazy day. I finished setting the left aileron and got the control stick exactly 90 degrees. The right stick was probably off 20 degrees. I disconnected the control tube between the stick and the bellcrank and then set the aileron to neutral when the bell crank was neutral. Next, I set the control stick to vertical (so it matched the left stick) and then adjusted the length of the control tube between the aileron bell crank and the right stick. Getting things close was easy. Getting them exact was next to impossible. I settled for very close.

I drilled holes in the aft fuselage bulkheads to run the elevator trim cable and reinstalled it in the holes (with 5/8″ bushings per the plans). Along the way I discovered some binding in the elevator. It is neither bad, nor obvious. I am thinking I may not have the rod end bearings adjusted properly so I will probably start there since nothing seems to be rubbing.

The rest of the afternoon was spend deciphering the plans and figuring out how to run the fuel lines, fuel vent lines, and the brake lines. My goal is to get that done this week. I may be optimistic in my planning as I need to spend more time at work this week and I don’t have my fuel pump. Let me say I was surprised to find that my fuel pump is $660. What happened to the $50 Facet fuel pump? It isn’t used with fuel injection.

10/1/11 1.2 hours, 522.5 Fuselage Build Time, Total Build Time 1125.2

After getting the ailerons and flaps to line up I was feeling pretty good about things. Just one thing was nagging me – I had not set the aileron bell crank to a neutral position and since Van’s included a jig to do this, it seemed to me it might be wise to do. The drawing showed the jig bolted in place, sort of but that made no sense. At this point the directions are more like steps to accomplish, not directions. What eventually made sense was to use a bolt through the jig and bell crank to position the unit in a neutral position and then adjust the length of the control rod between the aileron and bell crank to a length that put the aileron in a neutral position. That involved some trial and error but I got it done for the left side.

This almost certainly resulted in a change in geometry between the bell crank and the control column, but I have not verified this yet. My guess is I’ll be shortening the rod by 3/4″ more or less and then I’ll repeat the whole thing on the right side.

I spent a lot of time grinding the screw that holds the control rod to the aileron. It is shipped long for some reason and there isn’t room for it to pass through the bracket and snug up. The aileron skin is in the way and the plans call for grinding it shorter but leaving 2 threads showing. As near as I can tell there is very little room for error when grinding, so I’m going slow.

One other tedious task I accomplished was to remove 10 washers from the 5 bolts that hold the aileron to the wing. Steve and I added them when it appeared that there was interference between the wing skin and the aileron. I called Van’s about this and they okay’d the washers but were perplexed about why there would be interference. Gus suggested it might only interfere when the aileron was moved beyond it’s normal range of motion. After connection the aileron and seeing the normal range of motion, it appeared he was right. With the washers gone, there is no interference. Good deal.