Wings 5
3/26/2006 9 Hours
Today was the day to comply with Van's latest service bulletin regarding the fuel pick ups in the fuel tanks. I wasn't looking forward to doing this really because I knew that it could be a bit messy what with all the Proseal going on.
First I had to get the covers off! It was such a shame really, because I'd just got the tanks sealed up when the service bulletin came out. Just my luck. I removed the screws, and started to prise the covers off. They came off OK. I cleaned them up with acetone, and drilled a small hole in each fitting nut for the safety wire. I safety wired the fuel pick up on, and then it was a matter of mixing up the Proseal and daubing it on everything before assembling it all again.
With the wings on, it's a bit of a squeeze to get it in, but it worked out alright. At least that's done and out of the way now. Service bulletin complied with.
Here's the left side, showing the safety wire.
Doing this stuff took up nearly my whole day. I don't know if I'm a bit slow or what. Maybe it's all the cups of tea I'm drinking?!
Now that that's done, I can get on and plumb the fuel lines for good. I received the unions I needed from Spruce to complete this task the other week. I'm glad I went this route, because it made fitting all this together so much easier. I had to make one of the tubes twice though, because I was dumb and forgot to put the sleeve and nut on before I went and flared the tube. Doh! I'm good at doing this!
Here's the tank access plate back in situ with the fuel line running to it.
And the inside of the plane. You can see the fitting. This allowed me to get the bends much more precisely positioned. Before, it was horrific through here. The tubes looked terrible.
Next weeks task is to make the vent lines between the tank and the fuselage. Then, I'm ready to take some fuel onboard!
I also painted the landing and taxi light mounts today. I still need one more coat to finish them off nicely though. Next week, I should be able to assemble them into the plane. Maybe I can come by one evening when it's dark to align them too!
4/16/2006 8 Hours
I did get to the hangar last week, but didn't work on the plane, mainly because I was a bit too sick to think straight, and my friend Sung-Yeah came by with her boyfriend Paul to check out the plane. Thanks for the mango icecream Mochi guys, it was great!
I assembled my new bandsaw, but that was about it. I went home pretty early, and went to bed, hence no update.
This week though, I got some stuff done. I put all the lights together. Opted to put the foam tape on the brackets rather than the lamp itself for some reason. It just seemed better to me.
Then I made the plexi. The tape handle trick to hold the lens worked a treat. Here's the almost completed lens. I say almost, because after I got to this point, I had to trim a load of plexi off the bottom so I could get it in the wing hole with the lamp fixture in place.
Here's the whole ensemble. I still need to aim it. I've absolutely no idea about where this thing should be pointing! I'll ask Mike and Cameron to see where they aimed theirs.
Fully functioning! It's great trying all these things out and then they actually work as planned! The HID units make a high pitch noise until they warm up (about 20 secs), then they're nice and quiet. I can't here any noise on the radio from them, but I haven't connected the wingtip antennae yet. I'll keep you posted. Pretty bright eh?
4/26/2006 5.5 Hours
Since I was at the hangar tonight when it was dark out, I decided to have a go at aiming the landing light. I've still no real idea of where it should be pointing, but I wheeled the plane outside, switched it on and WOW! It's bright! I aimed it to where I thought it would work best. I guess it'll be trial and error when I'm actually flying as to how I like it set up. I forgot to take a picture though.
5/6/2006 12 Hours
I finished up the fuel vent lines to the wings, so now the fuel system is 100% complete. As soon as I figure out how to set up the fuel account with the FBO (which is temporarily closed for refurbishment) then I can callibrate my fuel gauges.
This is a shot from underneath the plane. It's not focused too well is it?!
5/9/2006 4 Hours
I wanted to do something different on the plane, just for a change from all the engine stuff, but something that would also contribute to getting the thing started. I'm planning for a Memorial Day weekend first engine start. Not sure which day yet, but it'll probably end up being the last day available after burning the midnight oil to get it ready!
Anyway, the thing I did was calibrate the left fuel gauge. This involved a large avgas purchase. I got the fuel truck to come by and fill up five, five gallon containers. Then I drilled the hole in the fuselage side for the fuel level sender wire, and connected it up to the sender.
On the quickbuild kits, you don't get the choice of capacitive senders, which is a shame, as the standard float sensors aren't mean't to be that good. We'll see how it turns out I guess.
first thing I did was to run a few gallons of agas through the system toi flush it through. Hmm, pump is on, but it's not pumping. I wondered if it needed priming. I applied an air hose to the tank to give it enough pressure to force fuel down the lines. Still nothing. I figured out that it may be because the electrical conection to the pump was reversed. I got in the plane, switched the wires, and voila! Fuel came pumping though nicely.
I raised the plane level to calibrate the tanks. I pumped it all out the left tank until it started sucking air, and called that "empty". Then I started adding gas a gallon at a time, checking the EFIS display for changes in the readings on the calibration screen. The needles on the Van's gauges didn't move until about two gallons of gas were in the tank. I started inputing the readings, and the desired display numbers that correspond to the said readings in to the EFIS. Easy stuff really. The Van's analogue gauges were way off. They might as well not have any numbers on them at all.
I didn't have my camera with me, so no pics of this event. There wasn't too much to see really anyway.
We had to torque up the wing spar bolts before laying the floor boards, but I'd forgotten to put washers under the bolt heads when I last put them in. I never did put the nuts on until now anyway. So here I am hammering out the bolts with the mallet, putting washers on, and then torquing them up. This took a huge chunk of time out of our day.
Here I've got the top big bolts done. Almost done with the lower big bolts. I coated the bolts with T-9 Boeshield liquid before putting them in too. This stuff is good, as it inhibits corrosion, it dries to a film which means it won't attract dirt or run out.
