Section 34 Complete - Oil Cooler Mount - Interior Paint 1st Coat

Busy weekend! Started off Saturday morning attending a EAA Young Eagles event in Tipton, IA (8C4) and providing some ground help marshaling planes and escorting guests around the ramp. We had a great turnout, and it was awesome to see so many people from our chapter (#33) present. Two certified aircraft showed up-- a Mooney and a 172-- in addition to that though we had 5 experimentals including 3 Long-EZ's and 2 RV's giving rides! Very cool to watch our chapter pilots do what they do best in some gusty crosswinds at an airport that had some fairly challenging and wind-jumbling trees and terrain. Smiles all around!

After that though, it was time to get back to work and finish up the last remaining part of the baggage door: the F-1031 frame. My idea was to install a micro switch inside the frame, and put a small access cover in place of the original striker plate that would normally be there. After taking a few measurements and marking off the piece, I ended up with this:

The F-1031 Upper Baggage Door Seal Channel after installation

I don't have a pic of the cover plate or the micro switch, but the switch is attached to the cover plate and has a small steel wheel that protrudes out the back side (inboard side) of the channel. When the baggage door is closed, the latch catches on this wheel and pushes it in flush with the channel, activating the switch. This way, even if the door is fully closed, but the latch isn't latched, the switch will still indicate that the cargo door isn't properly closed. Should work pretty slick!

That puts an end to Section 34... yay! Before moving on to interior paint, I decided to assemble and install the oil cooler mount that I had custom-modified a few weeks ago to accept a larger-sized cooler. It went fairly well, although a few of the rivets along the top were fairly difficult to access. I ended up having to install just the top flange by itself to the firewall, allowing me to bend it down quite a ways to access the top row of rivets, and then assemble the rest of it as it got attached to the firewall. The resulting product looked great!

Custom oversize oil cooler mount, final installation - L side

Custom oversize oil cooler mount, final installation - R side

EDIT 11/1/2015: I think I may have messed up. Now that the finish kit is here, I see that the engine mount will actually get in the way of the larger oil cooler. I may have to redesign this mount from scratch, we'll see. Keep looking for updates on this.

The next order of business before we start bending brake and fuel lines is to paint the interior. Most parts of the interior will be carpeted or upholstered anyway, but the idea of painting the interior is to give the underlying structure a kind of consistent "base" color so that you won't see any unpainted surfaces in all the little nooks and crannies that won't be covered up. I've decided to go with a simple and inexpensive rattle-can paint, Rustoleum "Hammered" Black. The hammered pattern should give a nice look and spray on relatively easily.

I spent about an hour or so masking off all the parts I didn't want to get paint on, and in retrospect I think I should have spent even more time. More overspray got inside the tunnel and under the front seat than I had anticipated, which isn't a huge deal but it would have been better if I could have kept it brighter white. I may try and repaint it white or leave it alone, we'll see. Also, I never masked off the firewall so it ended up getting painted too. Not sure how I feel about that, we'll see how well it adheres to the stainless.

The first coat took 4 cans, and came out relatively well. It got a little blotchy in a few areas where I started to run low on paint, but I'll wait the recommended 48 hours and throw another light coat on. I imagine 2 more cans ought to do the trick. I'll also need to paint a number of other panels off the plane, so I'll probably need a total of maybe 4 more cans. Here's what it looks like so far:

Aft interior section after painting first coat

Forward interior section after painting first coat

That's it for now! We'll give this first coat 48 hours to cure and then try and shoot a light second coat over it and see if we can fill in a few of the light spots. Stay tuned for that!

Section 35 Complete!

Knocked off another section this weekend! By far the hardest part about this section was installing the rear floor pans, discussed in a previous post. The rest of it is really for the most part final-drilling a bunch of #19 holes, dimpling a bunch of #8 screw holes, and maybe the occasional nutplate installation. Easy peasy. Of course, this section isn't really ever "complete" until every last panel has been upholstered/painted and then screwed into position, but that's not necessarily going to happen until the plane is ready to fly-- certainly not until a number of other systems have been installed like the flight controls, brake lines, fuel lines, and wiring. So, I'm calling this section "complete" but really there's just a pile of bare aluminum panels that still need to be painted or upholstered. That will come in time!

Some of the access panels in place (shown unprimed)

It's hard to get the whole bird in the photo nowadays... not a bad problem!

Oh! I almost forgot. Spent a good amount of time this morning modifying the oil cooler mount that I had added to the fuselage kit. Because my engine has the piston cooling oil nozzles, oil cooling needs to perform better than similar engines without this feature (with the positive tradeoff of lower and more stable engine temperatures overall, of course... at least that's the theory). Due to this, I will be using a one-upsize oil cooler, the Airflow performance 2008X. This cooler is the same width and thickness as the stock one, but is about 1-5/8" longer. The mount, then, will need to be modified to accept this larger unit.

The stock VA-186 Oil Cooler Mount

Spacer brackets fabricated to extend the cooler's length

Modified VA-186 mount to accept Airflow 2008X Oil Cooler

EDIT 11/1/2015: I think I may have messed up. Now that the finish kit is here, I think the engine mount will actually be in the way of the larger oil cooler. I may have to redesign this thing from scratch, we'll see. Keep looking for updates on this.

In theory, it's not a very difficult modification. However, it ended up taking about 4 hours to get it just right. Basically, I separated the top plate of the mount from the rest of the assembly and fabricated a few spacer extensions to lengthen the open area for the cooler.. By changing the angles that the cooler originally sat at by a small degree, it retains the same footprint on the firewall and now accepts the larger oil cooler. Cool!

Speaking of cool, we've arrived at kind of a "cool" pivotal spot in the build. Most of the metalwork is done, at least as far as the primary structure of the airframe is concerned. Of course we have by no means set our last rivet, but everything from here on out is really pretty minor as far as aluminum work goes. From here onward, the majority of tasks are going to be centered around plumbing, wiring, control systems, and of course FIBERGLASS. As with many builders before us who have gotten to this stage, we've sorta procrastinated on some of the smaller glass tasks that have presented themselves along the way, and now have a stack of small bits to make as well as a couple large ones. I've heard from many builders that the canopy top and doors are some of the most time-consuming and painstaking parts of the build, and make up for a substantial portion of the total build time.

Also, it's time to start buying "stuff." Everything from wiring, stick grips, fuel lines, brake lines, the rudder pedal system, custom tidbits/upgrades, antennas, lighting, upholstery, and even the beginnings of some avionics. This is both exciting and depressing, as it is going to require careful management of monthly expenses and planning out the logistics of what needs to be bought and when. The UPS guy, if he doesn't already, is going to start to remember this house over the next few months! Who am I kidding, he's gotta already know us :-)

Over the next few days, I'll be assembling a list of things left to do before the finish kit arrives (don't worry, there is still PLENTY to do, I just need to make a list and organize/prioritize). Among the next things to do: (1) measure custom lengths for brake/fuel lines and decide if we're using flex or solid lines, probably a combo of both; (2) paint the interior; (3) continue with the baggage door after my latch arrives; and (4) begin fiberglass work.

Until the list is complete though, marathon-nights of extreme building may be replaced by marathon-nights of extreme reflection on what to do next and how to do it. The metamorphosis from builder to philosopher begins....