Firewall Forward XII
5/14/2006 9 Hours
We're moving along nicely now, and there really isn't too much left to do to get this thing cranking! I needed to make a new throttle bracket to get the cable further away from the exhaust pipe. I think I'll still need a heatshield, but generally what we came up with will work OK.
Clayton came by today to help out too. He brought his welder with him so we could get this bracket done. This is the basic form. It's a bit tricky to bend it. Most of the bends I ended up doing in a vice. So much for buying a bending brake!
Next, the hard part was figuring out where the holes needed to be. Here, I'm enlarging the hole to take the throttle cable. Smokin'! That'll be the Boelube!
Here it is with holes. A bit out of focus. Clayton isn't used to my camera yet!
Now we have holes, it needed trimming up a bit. Clayton had a go with the bandsaw. Not exactly demonstrating the safest way to use it I have to say. At least this time, I made him wear safety glasses!
Since this bracket has a longer reach than the previous one, I decided to add a brace to the back of the throttle cable support lug. I didn't want this thing to flex anywhere. I have a bit of a habit of over engineering things. Maybe it's my automotive background, who knows. Trying to make things that'll work for Mexico truck durability requirements!
Here, Clayton is welding the brace in. Sweet.
A bit of weld cleanup to make it all look pretty.
And to make it look even better, some paint. Primer first though. Nice respirator eh?!
Then some black. Tomorrow, this thing should be ready to fit to the plane!
In between doing stuff to the bracket, we did a few other bits and pieces too. One of which was the link pipe for the pressure sender and switch. The lengths here worked out prefectly, as Clayton had a clever measuring idea, then told me to bend the pipe where I did the first half. It came out perfect! Great job dude!
Here's an arty shot of a bunch of AN fittings, on a catalogue opened to a hose and fittings page! This could go into the Museum of Contemporary Art! We'll call it "Fitting".
I let Clayton loose with the drill on the plane. Here, he's match drilling the firwall to the doubler plate he made for the manifold. We put nut plates on there too. There should ideally bo NOTHING onthe firewall held on with a nut and a bolt. Otherwise, it's a two man job to remove the stuff once the plane is together.
Here it is fitted to the plane.
We also did some electrical troubleshooting. I covered that on the electrical page though.
5/15/2006 2 Hours
This evening I stopped by the hangar (briefly) and attached the throttle bracket to the engine. I think I may still need a heat shield. We'll see how it looks. It's going to get pretty hot down there.
I also drained out all the preservatitve oil that was in the engine, and filled it up with fresh non-dispersant oil. I got a bunch of oil from Mattituck. I think when I'm at Oshkosh, I'll sign up for the Exxon oil deal and get some cases of the stuff.
While I was filling it (a slow process throguh the dipstick tube), I calibrated the dipstick. I basically did it every two quarts, and used a centre punch to mark the level. I'll then make some grooves where the punch marks are and engrave some numbers on there.
5/20/2006 8 Hours
I also did a bit of firewall forward wiring today, and secured the secondary alternator harness. Here it is all wrapped up and adel clamped.
Here, I've secured the FADEC harness that runs to the two firewall pass through connectors. These interface the firewall forward side of the FADEC to the stuff in the cabin.
I wired the hobbs oil pressure switch, and the oil pressure sender. I also ran the oil temp sender wire, even though I can't mount it to the engine yet because I'm waiting for the adaptor to get here!
I took a day off work today so I could make some progress towards getting the plane started. The baffles were ready today, so I picked them up, and started putting them on and getting everything else wrapped up that was waiting because of them.
Here I've fitted the oil cooler. The wire routing for the FADEC harness worked out OK, and missed the cooler without a problem.
I threaded through all the cables and the fuel hose, and fitted their respective grommets. This shows the fuel hose and the cylinder heater harness pass throughs. In the background, you can see where the FADEC harness comes through.
Here's the right side showing the FADEC harness going to the fuel spider. I need to tie this up a little to stop it wiggling around. For some reason I had some hazy pictures today. I'm wondering if it was the humidity?!
On the left side there's only fuel injector harness. Still need to secure it here. It's secure along the spine of the engine, I just need it to be a bit sturdier over the cylinders.
A general shot showing how it's all looking!
I went and safety wired the baffles together. SOme people use a threaded rod. I was tempted to use threaded rod too, but I thought I'd see how the safety wire works out. It's actually not as hokey is it seems, as long as you use washers to stop the wire eating through the baffle material. There's not that much force on the parts either in this position, so safety wire seems like it'll work fine.
You can see the tubing over the wire to prevent chaffing.
The cabin heat hose from the baffle to the heat muff. To get this baffle quadrant on, I was forced to remove the dipstick tube. That meant breaking out the safety wire pliers again!
I ran the heater harness and the left side fuel injector harness along the spine of the engine case.
And secured the fuel injectors on all four cylinders. Once I'd done this, I turned on the Master, then the EFIS, and turned on the fuel pump. It went up pretty quickly to 30psi, so I switched it off and then went to look for leaks. Not a one! That's what we like to see. It's nice to be able to pressurize your system and check for leaks like that. Beats finding them when the engine is running!
During the baffle installation, I went around the engine and made sure all the hoses and fittings were tightened. I'd been loosening stuff all over the place to get things on and off the engine as time has gone by, so this was a good time to tidy all that stuff up.
I need to get some RTV to use to seal the snorkel to the throttle body. I'll install that tomorrow. Then, I'm on to getting the centre console in the plane and getting the throttle and prop cables rigged. Looks like I'm on schedule for a Sunday morning start up!
