Fiberglass Projects (5)

5 hours

I still have the cowl and wheel pants at home, and there were a few little jobs I wanted to get done before taking them to the airport.

On the upper cowl, I still needed to add some kind of air exit for the turbo cooler.  I went with these two little NACA vents from Aircraft Spruce.  I just mounted them backwards so they don't act like scoops in flight.

I glued them to the inside of the cowl with JB Weld plastic epoxy.

After a bunch of trimming, sanding, a little filler, and more sanding, they look decent enough.

I also finally filled the holes I drilled way back when I initially fit the cowl to the prop hub.

This is the filler I used.  It's like Bondo except it weighs almost nothing!

I have read that it helps engine cooling to smooth out the air inlet on the front of the cowl.  I already had the filler out so I figured I might as well try to improve these inlets while I was at it.  It ended up taking three applications with a bunch of sanding in between, but now the inlets have nice little ramps instead of abrupt entrances.

I also used some filler to smoothen the parting lines on the wheel pants, and cover the couple erroneous holes I drilled when I fit them to the landing gear.

Fuel Tank Strap Service Bulletin (3)

 3 hours

Sonex put out a service bulletin to replace the single piece fuel tank straps with new two-piece straps that can be adjusted to avoid over-constraining the tank in case it expands slightly over time.

Anyway, I found it pretty easy to replace the aft strap, but the forward strap was not fun!  Pretty much all the wires go right past the two fasteners that I had to remove and replace, and also the ADAHRS box on the right side was in the way.  I struggled with it for quite a while, and finally gave up and got my wife to help me remove the ADAHRS so I could get at it, and then it wasn't too bad.  Still, hanging out crammed in the footwell was not comfortable!

Decals & Placards (3)

 3 hours

There were still a few things I needed to add to the plane to make it legal.  First, I bought the required data placard to mount below the left stabilator.  I could have probably made one myself for cheap, but this one turned out really nice.  I bought it here: https://www.experimentalaccessories.com/

Next I put the registration in a little document holder and attached that in the cockpit.  Here's the document holder that I used.

Finally, I had to make some decals for the tail number and required "experimental" label.  I used my wife's Cricut and some black vinyl to produce these decals.  It was pretty simple after a little trial and error.  The font I used is called AmarilloUSAF.

Eventually I will paint or vinyl the whole plane and make new numbers, but these will work until then!

Gear Leg Fairings (12)

12 hours

This was a little but of a project, but in the end I think it went pretty well.  I kind of expected to have a really hard time getting the fairings to fit nicely, but the dimensions in the plans actually came out really close!

I started by cutting out the pieces and then laying out all the dimensions called out in the plans.  This took a while all by itself.  

I also made the hinges, and then I roughly cut the ends of the sheets to the drawn-on profile, and also drilled the hinges to the sheets in the appropriate places while they were still flat.

This is how I bent the fairings.  First I took two scrap 2x4s and screwed them to my workbench.  I think I put them 1-1/4" apart, although I don't think that was super critical.  Anyway, then I took a chunk of 3/4" dowel and put a long decking screw through each end.  Then I lined up the dowel centered between the 2x4s and just started the screws into the tabletop.  Next I slid the sheet between the 2x4s and the dowel, got it lined up as nice as I could so the centerline was directly below the dowel, and then screwed in the deck screws at either end of the dowel.  This pushed the sheet down between the 2x4s and bent the edges most of the way up towards each other.  From there, I was able to cleco the hinges on, and press them together by hand until I could insert the hinge pin.  Then I removed the dowel and the bend was done!

Doing the bend this way worked surprisingly well.  Anyway next I set about getting the fairing to fit on the plane.  I built the right side first, and test fit t around the gear leg.  It was a tight fit, so I gradually trimmed little bits off the top and bottom to try and make it fit reasonably close on both ends without interfering with anything.  Unfortunately I went too far and ended up with a pretty large gap as you can see in the next two photos!

I took the lessons learned from the right side, and got the left side to fit a lot better.  Then I went back and redid the right side.  I found that it was pretty hard to finagle the fairings into place with all the clecos, so as soon as things looked like they were going to work out I just went ahead and riveted the hinges on.

To keep the farings in place, the plans say to put one long hinge pin from the inside of the cockpit floor, through the floor, through the fairing hinge, and into the fiberglass wheel fairing.  I didn't want to do it that way because I'd never be able to install the pin by myself, plus the brake caliper was in the way on the wheel side anyway.  I decided to do what I think a lot of builders have done and have two pins go from the center outwards, with a little notch cut into the fairing for access.  I had the upper pin penetrate the floor, but I couldn't have the lower pin go through the wheel fairing because of the caliper.  Instead, I made a little tab with a nutplate for each side, and riveted it to the underside of the floor.  Now the fairings are retained by a screw and the upper hinge pin; I think that will be enough!

I drilled some tiny holes so I could safety wire the ends of the hinge pin together so neither of them can work their way out.