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Last Modified June 3rd 2002.
1st May No a lot of building, working in Lower Hutt. On getting back in the evening I pulled the plenum former off the cowling, chopped out the foam from the plenum and then trimmed the edges of the plenum.
2nd May No building, SAANZ meeting.
3rd May No building.
4th May The throttle cables as supplied are far too long to be used as is so I cut them back to length ensuring that I could create a smooth line with the cables. The original ends had crimped on ferrules which I abandoned. In order to secure both the throttle cables and the choke cables to the Rotax supplied ferrules I lock wired the cables to the mountings.
I refitted the cowlings and then sanded back the filler that I had built up to match the port side profile. The aft section still wasn't quite right so I built up some more filler over that section.
My mistake of the
day was to assume that the hole for the oil tank drain located in the air plenum
upper plate had been correctly located by Europa. I mounted the oil tank so that
the drain was located in the hole and then discovered that the oil tank clashed
with the upper cowling. Close inspection of the photos supplied with the manual
showed that the oil tank really needs to be as close to the engine as is
practical and is also mounted a lot higher than the diagrams show. I
repositioned the oil tank and found that the right hand mounting bracket for the
tank largely overlapped the indented section in the starboard footwell. I wasn't
comfortable with the positioning of the bolt hole so made a new support arm
which I riveted to the right hand section of the bracket. This arm allows the
lower support bolt to be placed well clear of the indented section of the
footwell.
5th May Once Stefan had dragged himself out of bed we bolted the oil tank to the footwell.
The radiator housing sits underneath the engine and is supported by a pair of bolts inside the footwells and by a couple of side plates which get bolted to the main assembly. I positioned the back of the assembly in the gap between the footwells and then supported the front with some wire. With the lower cowling back on the aircraft I was able to determine the best position for it and secured the position by clecoing the plates together and those to the footwells.
The bolts
holding the side plates to the main assembly sit more or less covered by the
radiators so I removed the radiators and bolted the side plates into place. I
established how far down I could move the oil radiator and made up some spacers
which would drop the oil radiator down as far as practical. This gives it the
opportunity to obtain cool air compared to the standard position which has it in
the warm air flow of the water radiator. The only change required to support
this is to replace the elbow connector with a straight connector to match the
other side and to use longer bolts to cater for the spacers.
In order to provide a mounting hole for the two bolts on the inner faces of the footwells I used nutplates mounted in holes in the surface as the mounting position was underneath the rudder pedal floor plate and therefore impossible to access from the inside.
With the assembly finished I bolted the two inner bolts and fitted the lower cowling. The rest of the bolts will have to wait until Stefan is home as this is definitely not a one man job.
The engine
installation manual leaves quite a bit to be desired when it comes to describing
the plumbing installation. One rather important hose doesn't even get mentioned
at all and it's only through studying the photos that you realise that one of
the lines from the oil pump to the oil cooler uses left over shielded fuel line.
The routing of the lines is not described at all so I spent a bit of time
working out how I could get the lines between locations.
Last task was to redux the air plenum to the side of the lower cowling. I also set the outlet flange in a bed of redux/flox and will rivet it into place once the redux has set.
6th -10th May No building, it's Computerworld Expo Show week.
11th May No building - giving Air Training Corps Cadets flying experience.
12th May Plumbing day. First items to plumb in were the two water pipes. One pipe leaves the top coolant collector, feeds through the ring mount and descends to the radiator. The second, using a pre molded pipe, leaves the back of the engine and goes to the other side of the radiator. Installation of these was simple though the first pipe did need a bit of trimming on its horizontal run at the top to get a good fit.
Installation of the oil hoses was not so straight forward. There are three 12mm oil hoses to be installed....
The first hose goes from the sump outlet on the underside of the engine and goes to the inlet of the oil tank. No information is provided as to the routing of this pipe but there are only two possible options. The first would take the hose directly over the exhaust inlet to the turbo, then up the side of the engine to do a tight loop back into the oil tank. The second option brings the hose out on the port side, passes over the top of the front cylinder exhaust pipe where it passes under the engine and then loops back around the engine in a gradual curve. I decided that the second option looked better and if it looks good then it probably is good. I encased the hose in firesleeve and, where it runs close to the exhaust pipe wrapped the the firesleeve with thermotec wrap. I subsequently spoke with Marcus, the LAME who works on ZK-UBD, about a similar installation he is doing at the present time. Marcus had come to the same conclusion as me with regard to this hose which gave me some confidence. This hose installation requires a bit of forethought and ensuring that a 22mm spanner, the hose itself and a supply of paper tissues are on hand when the banjo fitting is rotated and the fitting cover removed. The tissues are required because the engine is supplied with oil in the sump and as soon as the cover is removed it is going to start pouring oil out onto the top of the cooling duct. A flat blade screw driver with a very long shaft is also required to tighten the jubilee clips on the radiators.
The second hose goes from the oil cooler to the pump inlet. The routing of this is determined by the supply of a pre molded hose by Europa though in my case I replaced this hose with a racing hose wrapped in fireshield. The hose comes out of the the pump and makes a right hand turn then feeds inside of the exhaust pipes to exit at the back of the engine above the water pipe. Mine then makes a gentle reverse curve downwards to enter the oil cooler.
The last of the 12mm hoses goes from the port side of the oil cooler to the
oil cooler outlet and this was easily run along the back of the engine.
The final oil hose to be run is an 8mm hose which goes from the oil cooler to the fitting on the oil pump. This hose, using left over shielded fuel hose goes runs in parallel with the second of the larger oil hoses before departing on the aft end to go between the manifold hose and the engine frame.
With hoses in place but not yet strapped up, I replaced the cowlings and then sanded back the filler that I had added to the port side. The profile wasn't quite right so another thin coat of filler was laid over the top.
13th May Trial fitted the radio sub panel in the instrument panel and then trimmed the instrument panel to allow the radio sub panel to fit.
14th May No building, working in Wellington.
15th May No building, writing a report.
16th May No building, worked in Tauranga today and had to write a report this evening.
17th May To
strap everything together on the engine I am using nylon cable ties. In order to
prevent abrasion between objects I first wrapped a cable tie around the two
items to be linked but left the cable tie a bit loose. A second tie positioned
90 degrees to the first tie, and located between the objects, pulled the first
cable tie tight and created an spacer between the objects. A couple of hours of
strapping had everything looking good on the engine to the point that even Carol
commented how tidy everything was starting to look.
18th May I marked out the shape of the two inspection hatches on the top cowling with the intention of cutting them out later in the day. Most of the afternoon was spent doing a massive workshop cleanup as it had become quite messy over the past couple of months. I then decided to do some cut and polishing and finished off the port side of the fin and half of the aft section of the fuselage.
19th May
I continued with the cutting and polishing of the port side. The section aft of
the cockpit is now complete and looks really good.
I turned the aircraft round and touched up to top gloss in a couple of places on the fuselage and stabilators where I wasn't happy with the finish.
20th - 22nd May I'll freely admin that painting the aircraft has been a love-hate relationship. It's an awful lot of work but the finish is coming up looking really good. I am finding that an hour of work with the Cyclo polisher is about all that I can take at a time. Hauling the unit around the surface is a really good cardiovascular workout and my arm muscles are increasing in strength every day.
23rd May I took a break from the polishing to rivet the baffle to the air duct.
24th May No building.
25th May In order to finish off the engine wiring I needed to fit the Airmaster hub brush plate and in order to fit the brush plate I needed to fit the hub!
First task was to go and buy two good quality 50mm G clamps so that I could push the bushes through the engine's propeller flange. [29th May. Airmaster have pointed out that if I had read the whole installation manual instead of just the bits that I thought I needed to read, I would discover that the tool they provide for removing the bushes will also work for installing the bushes. They are rewriting that section of the manual so that the point is not missed on future installers]
Having coated the inside of each hole with duralac I positioned the bushings against the holes. With a piece of metal on the front surface acting as a support for the G clamp, I pulled each bushing into the flange until it was flush with the front surface. Grabbing the other clamp and a spare piece of aluminium to back the bushings I used the two clamps to pull the bushings all the way into the flange.
I cleaned up the
front surface of the flange and the mating surface of the hub with acetone,
lined the fixing holes in the hub with duralac and then slid the hub onto the
flange. Each of the fixing bolts went into the holes easily and were hand
tightened before being torqued to 15ft lbs. To keep the hub protected I
temporarily mounted the spinner.
It was back to sanding and polishing for the rest of the day with the focus on getting the entire back section of the fuselage finished.
Having punished myself enough with the sander and polisher I dug out the rudder and sanded back the one side which I had neglected so far.
The palm sander made quick work of the rudders flat surface and polishing didn't take too much time either.
I fitted the
rudder to the aircraft and discovered that the screws on the centre hinge very
neatly cut themselves indents in the surface filler as I tightened them
up.
Stefan commented that the plane suddenly looked much bigger with the spinner and rudder in place. I decided to see what it would look like as a finished fuselage, fitted the cowlings and, for the first time, saw the complete fuselage shape.
There was definitely a sense of awe as I stood looking at the fuselage. For someone who failed every handcraft class in school, to get an aircraft to this stage gives an incredible feeling of satisfaction.
May 26th I
started the morning's tasks by lock wiring the bolts on the back of the hub.
These are lockwired in pairs using standard aviation techniques which link the
bolt heads so as to prevent anticlockwise motion. With the hub it place I
mounted the Airmaster brush and sensor block onto the engine. The block uses the
two threaded holes provided for the rotax large alternator on the left hand side
of the engine. These bolts were torqued and lock wired in accordance with the
Airmaster instructions. I ran the wire from the brush block into my wiring loom
and back through the firewall. While I was at it I reorganised a couple of other
wire runs to improve the installation.
The oil tank has an outlet which needs to vented. Rather than just vent this direct to the underside of the aircraft I decided to vent via a small plastic container to condense the oil mist. I attached the lid of the container to the underside of the air plenum cover with a 1/4" hose fitting and backing nut. Another hose fitting on the base of the container provides the connection for the actual vent. The container can be easily unscrewed from the lid for maintenance without disconnecting the main vent line.
I ran a pipe from the ambient air pressure sensor to a hole in the air plenum cover beside the oil tank and fed the wastegate cable through the two grommeted holes that I had made earlier.
On checking the oil and water radiators against the ducting I noted that there were quite a few points where the air could bypass the radiators. I closed up the gap between the water radiator and the sides of the ducting with a strip of tacky tape then very carefully drilled four rivet holes in the front face of the oil radiator. Two strips of cowling seal were then attached to the front of the oil radiator to cover the gaps between the radiator and the sides of the tunnel. There is a small gap between the base of the oil cooler and the cowling and I plan to do a layup inside the cowling to fill this gap.
One small task later in the day was to sand back the filler on the port side of the aircraft behind the cowling to the point where I am now happy with the shape.
May 27th No building
May 28th As it was a bit cold in the garage I did some work on the instrument panel. I wish I hadn't. The two main panels fit nicely onto the screw holes but the breaker panel won't! Reason...I drilled the screw holes first and then somehow, during the marking out process for the remaining holes, managed to flip the panel upside down. As a result of my error the only place this breaker panel is going is in the rubbish bin. I'll take advantage of the error to do a bit of redesigning as I wasn't totally happy with the position of the master and mag switches in relationship to each other.
May 29th Back to the drawing board. I laid out the new plan for the breaker panel and cut out the blank panel shape from my sheet of aluminium.
May 30th Marked out the holes on the breaker panel.
May 31st No building.
