Wheel fairing nutplates

reinforcements looks good, half way done with final drilling, and mounting nutplates for the screws that hold the front and rear fairings together. The wheel fairing work has become a welcome break from the avionics and wiring :)

Reinforced attachment points

So now the wheel fairings have an epoxy-flox mix curing around the six screws that attaches the wheel fairings.

Wheel fairing aligned

I cannot say that I completely understood or followed Vans instructions but I knew the goal and I am pretty confident in that I got a great alignment of the fairings.

The left on had me puzzled because it just placed itself perfectly on its own. The right one needed some push to stay were it is supposed to be. Surprisingly difficult to se were to drill after all was set up but in the end I managed.

I used the laser to draw a line under the centerline, then another line 90 degrees of this one and finally two lines close to the fairings.... I ended with enlarging the opening, I need to do some more, I do not have the needed clearance yet.

Wheel fairings drilled

I did an additional measurement by raising the tail so that the canopy rails were almost up to 90 degrees, and also raised the mains so that all weight was off them. I then used the iphone for this second measurement.

The left wheel fairing bracket was about 0.4-0.6 degrees off the reading from the rail and the offset when putting the lever at the same almost 90 degree angle that the rail had was way less than 1mm. The right side was even closer. This is basically within my free hand drilling precision so I just pushed the drill to the lower side of the relevant dimple in the back wheel fairing.

I think it looks good, so that was basically the pitch alignment the next step is getting the roll and yaw alignment, probably more difficult and especially the yaw alignment is probably more important for reducing drag, a sloppy job here might cost several knots!

 

Raised tail

Raised the tail for the wheel fairing alignment. I do not feel confident in my measuring method so I will do it again before starting up the drill.

Wheels in the air... not flying ;)

Tried to configure the arinc interface again. Did not success, might be a physical connection problem. Then one could say that a milestone has passed, he wheels have been in the air. I tested to lift the front wheels by using the engine host connected to the engine mount. I then raised the tail, so all three wheels have been in the air ;) This is in preparation for continuing with the gear fairings.

SB done

At almost exactly 1.5 hours, the new parts were installed.

SB 18-09-17

A service bulletin has been released regarding some cosmetic skin cracking in the bottom part of the tail. The fix is adding some reinforcing parts. I have now done everything except actually riveting the pieces in place, I need a helper for that.

All in all, ten rivets to drill out and 14 to rivet, no to bad

I need to stretch more

Propeller torqued

The propeller is torqued, this part was easy, getting the safety wire in place took forever! I also got my SB parts delivered, I ordered them on Monday so that was amazingly quick :)

Propeller Wrench

Got a new tool delivered. This will make it easy to reach and torque the prop. Now I just need to ensure I have the correct torque values and do the correction calculation.

I also marked the pins for the bottom cowl.

429 interface

Connected the 429 wires between the GTN625 and the GAD29, connected the GAD29 to power/gnd and the canbus. Then I tried to configure it, no luck yet but at least it is connected now.

GAD29

Received my GAD29, this is the interface module that will provide most of the communication between the EFIS screen and the IFR GPS (GDU470-GTN625).

Had to make a plate to attach it on the outside of the GEA24.

Chapter 29 done

With the air vents in place I could mark chapter 29 as done. (To be honest there are 2 rivets that needs to be driven, I could not get to them with the bucking bar I had at hand.)