Firewall Forward IV
11/7/2005 7.5 Hours
More aeroplane stuff today! I started with the alternator, and getting it mounted properly and secured. All I needed to do was double check everything, torque the bolts to spec and safety wire them.
Here are the two bracket bolts safetied and tabwashered. Talk about belt and braces!
Here's the adjustment arm safetied top and bottom.
I'm still trying to figure out what to do about his oil line. Maybe I should go ahead and make a hard one that runs where I want it. Can I use aluminium, or does it have to be steel? A question for Mahlon at Mattituck.
The rest of the day was spent doing electrical stuff. I took a break from all this and went shopoing to the electronics store and the hobby shop. For plane parts of course!
11/20/2005 8 Hours
This week, I received the stainless steel prop governor line form Mattituck. This should help with the clearance issue I have to the alternator. First thing I did at the hangar today was to remove the old hose, polish the stainless one up, and fit it to the engine. This is more like it!
Here's the front end...
The middle...
And the governor end.
12/4/2005 6 Hours
Back to the baffles. Clayton came by today and we started to put the baffles together. We did a little trimming to them to make them fit the engine better. This took a while as it's a bit iterative. put it on, take it off, trim, put it on, take it off, trim. Clayton was loosing patience with me! We got most of the back and sides trimmed up to fit the engine, fitted the rear attach bracket, and match drilled it to the rear baffle pieces. We also made a wedge to go between the baffles on the rear left side near where the oil cooler needs to go. I think I need to take some photos of all this stuff so you can see it a little better.
Here I am making the small angle piece for the rear right corner.
I put it on and Clayton match drilled it with his weapon of choice...
Here it is in position.
Once we got the baffles on, we laid the cowl on top. We have A LOT of trimming to do. Here's how much it's sitting high by! It's like this all the way around, and it's touching pretty much everywhere.
Next week, I'll start this trimming process. I took the baffle plans home with me tonight to read them fully (a few times over probably).
I didn't really get a lot of time at the hangar today as we had the inlaws in town from Chicago. We dropped them off at the airport at midday, and then I went to the hangar. I forgot to bring the baffle drawings I brought home last week (duh!) so progress on these was slow. First up for the day though was the exhaust. Aircraft Exhaust Technologies had reconfigured it completely last week, and shipped it out. I got it on Thursday I think.
I fitted it together as soon as it came, and I could immediately see that there was a big difference. When I got it to the hangar and onthe plane, it was almost perfect. I say almost, because I have one small item left to fix. As far as the tailpipe position, they got it exactly where it needs to be. The exhaust fits really well. So, the snag I have is with the pipe from cylinder 1. It's a little close to the intake cylinder rubber tube, with about 1/8" clearance. I'll give Chris and Kirk a ring tomorrow and see how they want to take it from here. So far, they've been very accommodating, and are looking for as perfect a job as I am. They're definitely doing a great job too.
Here are some pics! You can see from this pic that the tube routing is pretty nice. The Superior horizontal induction sump really helps to nestle everything in.
Here is where the clearance is a little tight. I think moving the bend forward along the pipe axis about a half inch to 1 inch will fix this quite nicely.
It looks like I have enough room in the cowling to do it too.
Here's an outside shot with the cowling on. Perfect. I'm really liking this a lot! I haven't needed to trim the rear of my cowling at all.
Here's a shot looking intot he cowling outlet. It's a squeeze, but everything looks OK. I'm going to put some aluminium sticky foil on the inside to reflect any heat. There's also plenty enough airflow through here to stop it being a problem. Good stuff!
Next I went to work on the right front floor of the baffles. I made the reinforcement piece and the bracket that supports it on the engine case. I still need to figure out the connection the the baffle side. I also figured out the floor angle and the baffle side bend to make it come close to the cowling inlet. I still need to trim it down a bit though at the front to clear the cowling on installation. I left it long deliberately until I see what the actual gaps here need to be. Helps if you have the drawings on hand eh?!
Here's the cut out for the prop governor line. I copied the PH-VII guys, hope they don't think I'm being too cheeky!
The bracket. I noticed that on PH-VII, they managed to get two screws in to this bracket at the top where it connects to the baffle floor. I could only get one in there. It's a bit small too, so I might make a new bracket that has a longer leg to get another screw in that bridges the prop governor slot.
I trimmed the outboard end of the floor to the correct angle and bent the baffle side to match. At this point, it started to get too cold this evening, so I called it a night and went home. The winters here are so depressingly cold!