On my way home from work I picked up some Imron 3.5 FT for the panel. This will be a flat black. They only sell it in quarts, so I will have quite some leftover. I am thinking about painting the panel cover in the same color to reduce the possibility for low sun glare until my bird gets painted ...
When I got home I felt rather burnt out and not much in the mood for building. After taking a break and vegging for a while I couldn't help myself though. I decided to prep a few aluminum parts for priming. They will get painted in the interior color thereafter and tomorrow morning will be a good day for shooting some primer. I know I will miss my paint booth!
I decided to install the elevator cables before it would get dark as I thought this was a 5 minute job. It turned out I wasn't quite right with that forecast.
When I found the aluminum bushing that was supposed to get installed between the two ribs and was supposed to get secured with an AN3 bolt I noticed two things. First, the bushing wasn't .968" long but .978" and that caused bending of the two ribs when I tried to install it anyway. So I used a file very carefully but mainly the soft SB wheel to bring it down to the correct length. Then I still couldn't get the bolt in. This was caused by the hole in the ribs being too tight. Be it for a small hole or for the primer that got into it. I needed the angle drill to open up the upper hole. The other side was not accessible and so I had to screw the bolt through the aluminum.
The instructions don't tell you that but in order to get the forward cables in, you have to start on the belly and install them through one of the maintenance hatches.
I decided to secure them with blue tape so I couldn't accidentally pull them through. Then the installation starts on the other side.
Securing the AN3 bolts with the castle nuts is fairly easy. I haven't put the cotter pins in yet. That will be the first thing I'll do in the morning. Why they have you install the nut AFTER they have you put the rudder cables with sleeves in, is completely beyond me. As you can see the sleeve made access to the opposite side of the AN4 bolt impossible for your hands. I had to glue on the two washers to the stop nut with super glue and put the nut in a wrench (the other side is covered with painter's tape to give the nut some resistance before it gets pushed through).
I guess I was lucky on this one as the nut caught on the bolt on the first attempt. I haven't torqued the bolt yet and that will be the second thing in the morning. At this point the bugs were getting really irritating, attracted by my halogen light, so I decided to do the important stuff (torquing and cotter pins) when I was less annoyed.
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