Crow Harnesses have arrived!

I was incredibly surprised to come home from flying today to find that my Crow Harnesses arrived on a Sunday! Wow. I ordered them early Monday morning Dec 17th and they landed on my doorstep today the 23rd (a Sunday!). I was not expecting that considering they were shipped USPS/Canada Post and shipping in Canada is always slow.

Firstly, I ordered directly off the website and chose the Kam Lock RV6/RV7/RV9/RV14 restraints with Pads in the Pro Series with Black Hardware (2" width). I called Crow to ask a bit more detailed information on the 2" aluminum adjusters and the response was they were a cleaner look than the steel, however he mentioned there was not much if any weight savings. Since I really wanted the red pull tabs, I opted to stick with the steel adjusters.

Taking them out of the bag, they are just beautiful.  

Straight away much of my pre-order concerns where taken care of at first glance. The Kam lock itself is much nicer that previous pictures as looks to be similar to those used on the Hooker Harness setup. The diameter is 2 5/16" and they are about 1 1/4" thick. In my opinion not cumbersome at all.

I was most happy with the attachment fittings. Reading past reviews it seemed that modification was required for the bolts but it seems that this has now been rectified. The crotch strap is not sewn at the bottom attach point allowing it to be adjustable and have that fitting in the pre-cut opening of the Van's attach bracket. The crotch strap attachment fitting is drilled for an AN5 bolt.

The lap belt and shoulder harness attachment fittings are slightly smaller and allow for an AN4 bolt.

I pulled out the scale and one complete set of belts (for one person) weighs 1585 grams or 3lbs 7.9oz.

Countersink the Firewall spacers and angles - 2 hours

Not a huge day on the build, but a big airplane day. I had a flight booked and the weather was perfect, so I flew a 1.6 and a 1.0 under the hood (working on my night rating), that ended up eating away most of my mid-day.

I was dreading countersinking the firewall parts. I've never enjoyed this process as I could never easily work out the best countersink depth for mating a dimpled piece in a countersunk piece. Getting a rivet flush with the material was the easiest cause you just work up to flush. But its never really clear how far past flush you go for nesting pieces. I ended up countersinking a little past flush so there was a very small ring around the rivet. When cleco'ing a small piece of dimpled material to it a very small gap was still present. I believe when I rivet this gap will disappear, or a very least be nearly gone.

Unfortunately I made one small oops. I had accidentally countersunk the topmost #30 hole in the F-601N-L stiffener. That one particular hole shouldn't be countersunk as it rests on top of the F-601L-1 stiffener. Oh well, I will have to put in a small order after Christmas to Van's and rivet it later.

Deburring and dimpling the bulkhead - 3.5 hours

I was able to slot a little time into today for the RV. This bulkhead has been quite slow progress. Seems I'm having difficulty ramping up the build after such a long build.

I took time to mark out the firewall penetrations for my planned build (I0-360-M1B with Constant speed prop). I figured it would be a bit easier to do this now, although knowing that I will likely have to do it again later. My drafting background is oozing out apparently.

In any case, I started with breaking the edges on the bulkhead with a file. Switching to small files I worked the small recesses around the top and the bottom corners. Using the 2" scotchbrite wheel I smoothed all the edges and then switched over to the dremel with red scotchbrite to pick up the small recesses and corners.



I began to deburr the rivet holes, however I notice that it doesn't work as well on stainless steel as it does aluminum. Some holes still feel a tad rough. So I broke out the dremel with the 3M scotchbrite and I lightly buffed each hole (A trick I learned dimpling the fuel tank skins) The result was very smooth hole. I finished the evening off by dimpling.
 

Completed match drilling the firewall - 2 hours

 Well, I woke up this morning having not slept. The frustrations of work and this firewall eating away at me. I decided to take some measurements of the pieces just to double check which piece may be incorrect in case I need to put in an order to Van’s. For some reason the measurements were just fine. And I thought to myself “That’s weird” and at that moment it occurred to me what the issue was. I had tried to cleco the recess on the bulkhead in the wrong way, it was protruding into the “Firewall forward” side, and not recessed to the “Aft side”. Total stupidity on my part. My mind is just mush and I’m not thinking straight. At least I left for work feeling uplifted that things were slowly falling into place.

When I got home, I snuck again into the garage to correctly fit the bulkhead recess. Sure enough it fit really well. So I completed match drilling it. 
 
 

All that was left was to complete the rest of the firewall match drilling which went very quickly and smoothly. Now all that’s left to do is do my homework to figure out what pieces get dimpled/countersunk for the next evenings work session.

Firewall recess fitment issues - 2 hours

 Again, it's been absolutely insane at work. Unfortunately I had to put a monstrous weekend and I just don't have the motivation to jump into the build at least on Monday. Tonight, I decided to at least cleco the firewall recess and match drill it. Straight away I ran into issues.  The top most #30 holes on the sides do not want to fit. If I force the cleco's then the top most corners really want to "Dog Ear" up placing considerable strain on the corners of the recess, which was concerning. I uncleco'd and re-cleco'd the recess a few times. Nothing seemed to work. I though perhaps I received a miss bent piece.




So, I wrap up the night feeling quite frustrated thinking that I need to order a new bulkhead recess.