April 29, 2006

It was a seriously long day at the hangar today. It was so long that it’s now the early hours of Sunday! Well I got a lot done today. The baffles are as good as done, apart from the seal material. I’ve decided to order some baffle fasteners from Aircraft Spruce instead of riveting it on. I think that the rivets look horrible, and using these baffle fasteners will make it look neat from both side, and enables the seal to be replaced if it get messed up somehow.

Right then…. I started off with the left rear baffle section. I made a doubler for the two grommets you can see in this picture. The big one is for the fuel line which will also have firesleeve on it, and the little one is for the cylinder heaters. I’m going to put the mains plug down in the lower cowling opening. You can also see the funky grommets from Aircraft Spruce. These are quite nifty, because they split in two so you can get the plug leads through the hole and then the grommet snaps back together and also covers the hole. Nice and clean.

On the same piece….. Previously, Clayton made the wedge piece you see here. Last week, he started to make the ‘counter wedge’ that will allow the bolt to stay straight. Today, I finished off his bits and trimmed them down some to lighten ’em up. Worked out lovely. Here you can see I also riveted them to the baffle. Trying to position these things in there and get a screw in the hole is nigh on impossible. If you secure these parts, it’ll be so much easier to assemble/disassemble.

On to the right rear baffle section. I needed a hole for the ignition lead grommet, and also a hole for the FADEC harness. The small pilot hole above the crescent shaped doubler plate is where the FADEC harness will come through.

Once I’d got that far with the baffles, I started mucking about with the wiring. I threaded the ignition leads through, and also the FADEC harness to confirm fit and routing. Seems to be OK! Fantastic!

The coil/computer end of the FADEC ensemble. These positions on the firewall are working out well.

Now on to the front baffles. It was time to figure out the top edge trim, and in order to accomplish that task I had to do the inlet ramps on the cowling. Here, I’ve trimmed the inlets to match the lower cowling, and cleco’d the ramps in. Writing this now, I’m kicking myself, because I forgot to mix up some epoxy and stick them in before I left the hangar. Dag nabbit!

The ramps need trimming up a bit to make them look a bit nicer, but it will do for now for my purposes. To trim the baffles. Gotta… get…. these….. baffles….. done….

I put the cowl on, and used the little metal circle trick to mark a 3/8" line. This is the first of what seemed like a thousand iterations. For those not aware, the liitle metal circle trick is very cool, and very simple. Make a small circular shape out of some scrap sheet, that is 3/4" diameter, put a hole in the middle just big enough for your pen tip, and use it to space the pen away from the cowling as you draw your line. Easy. Well, maybe for a double jointed contortionist! Getting in through the cowl inlets can be quite interesting for you arm!

Eventually…. You’ll have something that looks kind of like this. For my trimming, I had the green snips in my right hand, and my red snips in the other… Just call me Lobster Boy! The gap looks perfick.

And on this side too!

Here’s the debris, all over the place. Lot’s of curly bits of aluminium. Lot’s and lot’s…

Once I’d got the rough cuts, I took it all apart (AGAIN!) and cleaned everything up so it all matched properly and was smooth and proportional. What you’re seeing here is a victpry for me over these baffles. They’re finally done apart from the seal material. Here are some picks just so I can gloat.

T’other side….

I close up of the right rear wall.

And the left rear wall.

I can now breath a sigh of relief and start on the seal material. Once that’s out the way, I can start on some fun stuff like getting the oil cooler on with the hoses, running all the engine wiring, fitting the standby alternator, etc. etc. All good stuff to look forward to, getting closer to the first engine start!

It’s pretty late now, so I’m off to bed. I’m shattered. Oh yeah, there were no leaks in the brakes either after we filled them up last night! Sweet! G’night.