More Nose Fairing Trimming

I thought I was done with the nose wheel fairing but when I attached the aft half to it again to look how the leg fairing would clear it, I noticed that the top front edge of the aft fairing made contact with the leg.

Step by step I tried to allow for clearance while minimizing the amount of fairing removed. This was still not enough.

Once I had removed what appeared to be a sufficient amount, I used the tow bar to turn the wheel to its full end positions to see if there were more spots that could cause problems.

Considering that there would be a nose leg fairing have to squeeze in as well, there was quite some material that had to get removed.

The leg fairing was easier as there was only a small area of necessary clearance.

Getting tired of the on-off cycles for all the fairings I approached this step by deliberately removing material instead of squeezing out the minimum. Still I got pretty close to the 1/4" minimum.

The aft of the leg fairing that is a flat extension, will not matter as it will be subsequently removed from the fairing.

In the evening Gil Alexander came by in his function as an EAA tech Counselor and did an inspection of the fuselage this time (last he looked at the wing before I closed it up). Not too many things to fix up, so that's good news.

I also received oral confirmation of hangar availability at my desired home airport and I will seal the deal tomorrow around noon.

Looks like we are on schedule! Let's hope it stays that way!!!

Nose Wheel Fairing Completed

First I removed the masking tape from the electrical connector closeouts.

Then they went onto the fuselage.

Then I worked on incorporating the SB 12-08-09 (a reinforcement to the nose wheel fairing brackets) into the nose wheel brackets.

Then the front fairing was ready to get mounted onto the nose wheel.

The fit was good but the clearance to the tire was too small. With a minimum of 0.5" all around, I should be able to get my index finger in between and should have been able to get around without getting pinched. That was not the case, so I mounted the aft part as well to see if both parts needed further trimming (and for the looks).

It almost makes that nose leg looks tiny and thin, doesn't it?

All went off again, so I could give the tire enough clearance.

I now went to trim back to the second scribe line as you can see in the picture. That was not really enough either. I ended up widening the opening almost to the end of the splice strip before I was satisfied.

I also trimmed the openings for the tow bar. They needed quite some elongation on the aft side before there would not be any interference with the fairing while pushing or pulling on the tow bar.

That completed the work on the actual fairing. Next was the nose leg fairing which fit pretty well right away. It needed a bit of shortening on the top but nothing else. The way Van's wants me to connect it to the leg though I do not approve of. I will not be drilling into the nose leg just to attach the fairing.
For now I will restrict myself to trimming it to allow for enough clearance to the aft wheel fairing and then think about a good way of holding the leg fairing in place that does not involve drilling into the leg.

So I moved on to installing the POH tray under the instrument panel on the passenger side, a subset of section 43.

I was a bit tough to get at at this time and I should have definitely installed this before even riveting the instrument board in.

The tray allows the POH to stay secured yet making it easily accessible at any time. Van's really designed this very well.

Tomorrow, I hope to finish the trimming work on the nose leg fairing and after smoothening the skirt on the canopy, I consider the project completed - pending rigging work at the airport. Hopefully I can move the plane out to a hangar next weekend.

Fairing Brackets Drilled

I had forgotten to actually do the last step of the electrical wing connector installation which is to close up the fuselage side by screwing on the closeout covers. When I tried to do that tonight I realized that aluminum was touching unprimed aluminum and that this would probably be never opened up again.
I decided to remove the covers and prime their outside line that actually touches metal.

You can hardly see it in this picture but the center area is masked off. I will take another picture when I take off the masking tomorrow.

Next I installed the brackets on the nose wheel fairing. I do not like the CCR264 rivets and I was surprised Van's used them for attaching the brackets all along the flanges. They do not appear to be very strong.

I thought the next step was a waste of time but it turned out to be pretty relevant indeed. It was to connect the two halves while the drill template was screwed into place. Then the template was marked along the contact line with the brackets.

The reason why this is important is that it really makes a difference on the contact line with the template if or if not the aft fairing is installed. In my case the aft fairing pulled the brackets outboards and changed where the template would allow me to drill the holes.

I noticed this when I did it the first time, and took the aft fairing off, realizing that I could no longer see the marked line all along the edge of the template. The clamps did obviously not hold the template down tight enough. I did it again and this time I could hold the template in place and I could successfully drill the holes in the right places.

More on the weekend ...

Splice Strips Riveted

Tonight I riveted the splice strips onto the front fairing. It is easy except for the sticky mess of an epoxy bed the strips get installed into.

Here is one down, one to go.

I really ought to clean up that work bench though ....
And here the strips are both installed and the fairing cleaned up.

Now they it has to sit and cure along. Only a few small things I can do before the weekend.

Nose Fairing Prepped

It was a short day in the factory as I came home late from work. I needed to sand back the second application of filler on the rear fairing half.

It could use a third, very thin layer, but I might leave this for the surface prep at the paint shop.
I moved on to the splice strips. They needed half of their vinyl removed. I marked the area for removal.

Then I used a ruler on the straight line and a soldering iron to removed the vinyl. The curved areas were done free hand.

The last step was to scratch them up real good (and the corresponding areas inside of the front fairing half as well) with 80 grit sandpaper to give the epoxy something to hold on to.

The parts are ready for the epoxy step which I delayed till tomorrow evening as daylight was fading at the end of this step.

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.

Nose Wheel Fairing Trimmed

After checking the successful installation of the fuel gauge, I went on to prep the bracket that will hold the Operating Manual under the shelf on the passenger side. I wanted to prime the flanges before riveting them into place.

Then I completed the SB 13-08-08 by installing the AN3 lock nuts and replacing the broken VA-219 bolt that I had received from Van's in the mail yesterday.

And when I could not find anything else to do to avoid getting back to fiberglass trimming, I finally went back to the nose wheel fairing.
I was not as bad as I remembered it and I was closer to finishing the trimming part than I had thought, so I was way less painful than anticipated.

There was just one small area where I had over-trimmed it and needed some filling (and some fine trimming after curing).

While this was sitting, I started working on the nose leg fairing and removing some areas beyond scribe lines.

In the meanwhile the epoxy of the filler had already cured enough to handle the part and I removed the fairing half as well as the backing plate for the upcoming trimming.

It seem to have bonded nicely, so this should be easy to trim to line.
The last step of today's work was to apply some lightweight epoxy filler on the top of the aft half of the fairing. The join was not done nicely and one half of the fairing part was a bit higher than the other. I sanded it down a bit but need some filler on the lower side to build it up slightly. So there is more sanding in my near future.

This should all be cured enough to get it done tomorrow.