Finishing the brake master cylinder install and fixed center tunnel cover - 4 hours

 I moved onto finishing the installation of the Grove Brake master cylinders now that I have all the right size mounting hardware. Here is a view of the washer arrangement at the top. Took a couple of tries to get the right combination but I am really please with it. Overall the alignment is really good.

 So I installed cotter pins and called it done for now. I want to finish the final fitting of the front fuselage before I permanently install the brakes/rudder pedals. 

 With more time available to work I decided to strip the paint down on the sides of the centre tunnel since the fit is so tight with the final paint on the sides. I marked the edges where the center cover contacts the floor stiffeners. I masked off the part and ground down the metal/paint. With a couple wipes of acetone, I primed the bare metal with self-etch primer. The fit is so much better and not so tight.

 

Installing the F-789 Elevator Pushrod - 2 hours

 In order to install the F-789 elevator pushrod. The threaded ends are not installed and it slips in easily when inserted first through the F-705 bulkhead. 

Unfortunately many report that the control rod interferes with the F-705/F-705B bulkhead and center section bar and mine is no different. The interference is relatively slight…Maybe a 1/16” at most. Before I start sanding and filing I’ll give Vans Tech Support a call in the week and double check that I’m ok to trim the bulkhead down. 

Drilled the passenger control stick and fitted fuel pump - 4 hours

 Lots of little tasks to work on today in the cabin area. One item on the list is to complete Vans Service Bulletin SB-07-2-6 that permanently attaches the passenger side control stick by means of an AN3 bolt. It’s always a tricky task to drill a round tube cleanly and accurately. I drew out the measurements on AutoCAD and created a template. Using the template, carefully transferred the drill points onto the control stick. Closed my eyes and drilled each side to #40. Then I drilled again all the way through with #40. 

 

Now that I have perfect alignment. I clamped the assembly in the drill press and then upsized to #30, #19, and eventually a 3/16” reamer. 

 The passenger control stick is now ready to be installed in the Fuselage

 

Next…I might as well see how the fuel pump fits. The center tunnel cover is a bit tough to slide into place with the final paint taking away some clearance. Eventually I got everything into place and it sure looks good. 

 

Installed the F-796A tank attach brackets - 2.5 hours

I want to get the fuel vent lines installed, but I'm concerned that I need to fit the tank attach brackets before the vent lines are installed as I do not want to damage the lines.

Frankly I was dreading installing these purely as the clearances to the edges are so tight as well as its tricky to drill thick material by hand. 

My idea to help make this easy was to use a piece of aluminum flat bar. I drilled one of the holes from the F-796A bracket into the flat bar and started to drill the second hole, enough to identify the center to allow for a #40 pilot hole. With this I have a template I can work with to mark and drill the remaining holes on the fuselage.

I am able to place the template on the fuse. Confirm the location of the #40 hole and start the new hole. Before drilling...I double checked that the alignment was good. Yup!! it is.

Using both the template bolted to the fuse and the ATS drill jig. I slowly started increasing the holes sizes using the drill. Stepping the holes, #40, #30, #19, etc etc. until I was able to ream the holes for the AN3 bolt. It was perfect!

 

 

Fabricating park brake lines - 7 hours

 Well...Fabricating the park brake lines (lines that run from the park brake to the 90deg fittings) its a lot more difficult than one would think. Its just really tricky as the lines are so short, you must be precise in all your bends and cuts.

Today took a long time, but in my opinion it was well worth it. The fit is fantastic and looks pretty good. Figuring out the bend recipe was murder...I have so much scra/garbage bent tubing lol. I didn't write down the bend recipe for these as frankly I don't think anyone would; A - Need them, or B - be able to repeat it.  There were some tricky bends and some tight bends involved with these. I have to start some bends with the end of the tube on the end of the bender tool like this;

Or I have to make an immediate bend following another and I have to rotate the tube 90....slip the bend just far enough back and start the next bend.

After many many many attempts I finally was able to fabricate a left and right brake line. 

I am essentially done bending brake lines....It was so much much work but I am so pleased with the results and I have about 40' of tubing left over for future. I suppose I will give all the bending tools a good clean and light oil and I can now put them away in storage. Actually...there is quite a lot of tools that I can start thinking about putting into storage and free up some drawer and cupboard space.

 

 

 

 

Adding more rivets to the park brake doubler - 3 hours

 Looking at yesterdays work...I think I need to add more rivets. The spacing is just too far apart. 

Adding extra rivets is not a big deal with the use of the fan spacer. 

Its looking much better now. Now I need to clean up all the corners and debur the holes, most important is to ensure a good fit of the bulkhead grommets. 

The fit is excellent so I need to dimple everything before priming. The stainless steel firewall is easy to dimple with the pop rivet dimpler. Just takes a lot of finishing nails as there are so many rivet holes now.

Revising the park brake location - 4.5 hours

 I struggled a bit lately on where to mount the park brake as the rudder pedal interferes with the location if I mount it in the Vans standard location. So after a bit of research, looks as if some have mounted it higher but this places it where the IO-360 mixture and prop governor control cables penetrate. So I finally decided to place the park brake in an elevated location near the bulkhead penetrations. Before I do anything, I drafted a template on AutoCAD to get the fit right before I did anything.

The initial position was too low and the result is that the brake lines interfere with the horizontal tubes of the rudder pedals.

I will need to elevate the park brake a bit. So I tested a couple of variations.

Once I was satisfied with the placement. I used the CAD drawing to cut out a doubler as the fire wall needs a bit of stiffening at that location. First step is to get the rivet holes set and the openings in the doubler sorted for the bulkhead grommets that I have. To start I used a #40 bit for all of the holes at the center points.

Using the holes in the doubler as a guide...I set the doubler on the firewall and squared it using a carpenter's square. Then I drilled and clecoed all of the holes.

Now its time to open the holes in the firewall for the bulkhead grommets.

It took some time to slowly and carefully open up the holes to final size in both the firewall and the doubler. By the time I was finished, I was really happy with the results.