Wednesday, February 1, 2012

No More Main Gear Work

I got as far as I could in the Main Gear section. I finally torqued the top engine mount bolts after getting a stronger torque wrench that could apply the necessary 160-190 inch-pounds (this one actually works with foot-pounds and I applied 15 of those). The hole in the bolts lined up perfectly to allow the cotter pins to secure the castle nuts. Getting to those bolt heads was a bit tricky and needed all the extensions for the wrench that I had lying around and it just was enough to clear all the obstructions around the panel.


Then I added all the brake line fitting to the brass blocks and to the wheel brakes so the lines can get attached to these later down the road. I used Bakerseal for the thread sealant.




That was about all I could do in this section before I would have to get the gear legs attached to the fuselage and I cannot do that with the fuselage being located on the BACK patio. The only way to get this monster out the backyard is through a double door gate to the carport and it is just wide enough to clear the fuselage on the rolling workbench. It wouldn't pass with the gear legs attached and so I will go back to working on the canopy section again now that the temps have come back up and will soon stay warm anyway.
If my weather forecast would turn out to be all wrong, I could still finish the gear legs and then remove them for getting the fuselage into the carport to not stall the building process (yet again).
My real hope is though that the Avionics package will become available in the next 4 weeks and that I can finish the wiring in the fuselage so to move on and finish previous sections and get back to a more orderly build process without jumping back and forth to work around the Avionics installation.
And as I just learned on VAF, the Avionics order form for SkyView is finally available. I didn't really expect, so now I have to transfer some funds to be able to pay for it but at least we now see the end of the tunnel!!!

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