Wing Connectors Completed

This is the big headline but the real work went into a good progress on the nose wheel fairing and that's how the day started with as well. I trimmed back the filled area on the left face of the forward fairing. It looks great and bonded well.

The rest fit just as well and the fairing was ready to get the last touch-ups on its finish. I had sanded down the filled area on the rear fairing and it needed another layer.

It turned out that I had caught some air in the filler and did not build it up thick enough.

While this stuff was curing I moved on to the wing connectors. The receptacles in the fuselage were already done but their counterparts in the wing roots needed to get replaced as well.

Unbagging the wing roots was the first step. The wings are sitting on my back patio and little critters would just build a nest in there if I left the lightening holes open.

The instructions are straight forward and please don't try to outsmart Van's and change the order on the steps for riveting in the backplates. You need to pull the rivets first before screwing in the studs or your riveter won't have enough room to pull straight.

Crimping on the connectors required some thinking again. I even checked my blog to see if I had mentioned what sizes on the crimping pliers I used but I could not find a hint. So, now, as I have figured it out again, let me put this in writing: On the HF crimping pliers, I used C for the wire connection and D for crimping the relief onto the insulation.

Be careful when you insert the connectors into the plug and even more careful when you screw the plug to the studs! Orientation does matter here!

It was a little easier on the left wing as there are less existing wires in the snap bushing.

Crimping was faster too but then I forgot to take a picture of the end result...

This was how far I got with the images before I bagged the roots back up for another 1 or 2 weeks when they will get moved to the airport.

In the meanwhile the filler on the fairing had cured enough to get handled again, so it was back to the fiberglass.
The next step was simple but time consuming - match-drilling the screw holes into the aft fairing half. The time consuming part was that I had to install screws and nuts after drilling each hole to keep the parts aligned.

Everything was taken apart again to cleco the brackets into place.

These brackets were match-drilled and taken off again, so they could get dimpled, scuffed and primed.

The splice strips were dimpled too and I also applied a marking on the strips so I could tell which part was covered by the forward fairing's fiberglass. The vinyl will have to get removed there so the aluminum could get scuffed up and later get epoxied to the fairing. I will use the upper vinyl part as masking tape to keep the epoxy away from parts it should not bond to.

I took all the clecos out and removed the strips for this upcoming treatment.

My hope is that I can finish the work on the nose fairing during the week. The upcoming epoxy step will require the thing to be left alone for curing for a night anyway and that would be best done during the week.
Then I should be able to complete the nose leg fairing over the next weekend and that would pretty much complete what I could hope to get done in the carport.