Completed my first night solo flight

So I have been working on my night endorsement this winter. Tonight was my fist solo PIC in command. Logged a 0.6. I really enjoy flying at night!

Inspecting the firewall - 2 hours

Now that I've had time to let things sit and I can now really look at things. I'm really becoming uncomfortable with how the firewall looks. When you really look at it, since that sealant is soo thick, I fear that I do not have a good solid mechanical connection between the pieces.

After much swearing, looking, head scratching. I decided to drill out this connection to get a better look. It ends up to look much worse than it really is. Where the parts actually mate, the sealant is very thin. however, by drilling/punching all the rivets out I'm quite concerned that the rivet holes are too opened up/sloppy.

Being this is a major connection/stress point for the engine. I've made the difficult decision to abandon this fire wall. I will have to order a whole new firewall, but it isn't cheap and I have no money for new parts right now.

This build is put on hold for a while.     

Replacing rivets in the firewall - 8 hours

In the craziness of yesterday, some of the rivets need to be redone. drilling the heads off is easy enough. But I am dreading punching them out of such thick material. So... I cut a piece of oak that and fashioned it so that it would support the firewall when I drove the rivets out of the firewall.

This actually turned out to be an incredibly good tool. This gets placed under the firewall assembly and the rivet head gets placed inside the "notch". It then is able to support the area as you punch out the rivet.

I use some oak blocks under the firewall to support the 3 corners that I am not punching the rivets out on.



All done

Riveting the firewall - 14 hours

Before we go on...Lets just be clear. I have found out the hard way this is NOT HOW YOU SHOULD COMPLETE THE FIREWALL. Read on and learn why.


Super long day of work with not as much progress as I would have liked. Just a very fussy process.

First order of business was to apply a thin layer of sealant as a fay seal between the aluminum and the firewall. Now...I had it in my head that this would go easily, but let me assure you it is not. The sealant is extremely thick (much thicker than proseal) and it takes a considerable amount of time to put it on the angles and get it thin with a plastic scraper. I should have stopped at this point.....I didn't

I continued on.... I began to worry about the silicone setting before I could rivet it. So I felt it wise to clamp some of the more important areas.  This process becomes extremely difficult as it is vital to cleco the pieces to get it tight, but you cannot back rivet with the clecos it.

I just kept going.

And going...

It was nearly 3am I think when I finished... Some of the rivets will need to be re-done. I worry about it tomorrow. 

Getting ready to rivet the firewall - 2 hours

I have been deliberating quite a bit this last while on how to use fire barrier with the firewall. Talking things out with a friend we reasoned that it was a good idea to place a small film of fire sealant between the aluminum angles and the stainless steel firewall. The thinking is that if the aluminum rivets melt away in an emergency, there is some protection there for the fire barrier to do its job and close the rivet holes off. As well we were discussing the fire barrier would act as a good means of protecting the aluminum from corrosion as we didn't feel it wise to prime that mating surface.

Also in the research, getting CS1900 firewall sealant to Canada is not easy. Frankly it is darn near impossible. After lots of research, I ended up accepting the fact the only project I can get in Canada is 3M Fire Barrier 2000+ through aircraft spruce. Its the only "high end" fire sealant they sell.

So tonight, I spent some time getting things all set up and ready to go as I will need to finish riveting as fast as I can as I will be working on things "wet"