A Day of Swearing

It started all so good this morning. I happily finished the fitting of those control sticks and installed them, starting with the left side.


The easiest way in my eyes, is to installed the pushrod to the control stick before installing the stick. The area around the stick is so tight, you can hardly fit a hand in there - not to mention any tools.
This is how mine looked like before trying the first time to get this into the fuselage.


Notice that this special bushing that connects the pushrod to the mixer plate is installed on the end of the pushrod. This will not fit into the fuselage. It's just about an inch too long to slide through all the narrow openings. At this point I didn't know that though.
So, I tried to get in somehow but to no avail. Back to the bench, taking the bushing off gave me enough clearance to slide the assembly into place. Putting the bushing back on the pushrod inside the fuselage is fairly easy.


That worked so well, I did the same on the right side. This time leaving the bushing off from the beginning.


This one turned out to have too tight of a fitting to the control column bracket and so it had to come out again for some more filing.
Eventually, I had them both installed, perfectly fitted, torqued and secured with cotter pins. Boy, was I proud of myself!


I shouldn't have put the cotter pins in, that's always a bad omen. Particularly, if you don't have any spares... but I was yet to find that out.
So, back to the work bench and getting those grips ready for installation.
A hole punch cleared the top of the grips with a perfectly cut 1/4" hole, despite the fact I have those grips where you can't take the end off.


The switch was quickly installed by tying a string around the head of the actuator of the switch and pulling it through the hole. If the switch ever breaks and has to get replaced I might have to cut the grips off though to get to the wires.
With the assembly I went outside to pull the wires through the stick with the string I had installed and secured weeks ago. Well, and that's when my day just fell apart.
The string on the left wouldn't budge. I mean it wouldn't even move half an inch in either direction. It was just fine before I did the painting and I haven't felt the need to verify that it would still move, because why shouldn't it???
I cursed and pulled. Wouldn't move.
I cursed some more and pulled the other way. Nothing.
At some point I was yanking on that string like a maniac but it all didn't help, the string wouldn't move.
It took me some moments to realize that the only way to do this was to take the stick out, pull the string so hard that it would tear and start from scratch.
And that's what I did. I even burnt the rest of the string out that was still stuck somewhere inside the control stick. I used the vacuum technique to suck in another string which worked just fine, and this one moved without a hitch.
Having the stick on the work bench made the installation of the grips easier it turned out. I was using some shrink tube to attach the wire to the string. I have some expensive tube that doesn't just shrink but also stays flexible once it was activated and allows to get pulled around corners, which might have been helpful today.


I attached the shorter wire to the longer one with some duct tape on this stick. The right one got another shrink tube as it just worked better.


Sliding the grip over the control tube was a tough one until I remembered reading on the forum to let the grip slide on a cushion of air. I found a nozzle that could get pushed under the grip a little and it worked like a charm.


Now back to where we were before. Installing the stick, this time with the wires and the switch in place.


This time it all worked. I retorqued the AN4 bolt and I even found a bag of fitting cotter pins that I had forgotten about. Some extras I must have bought from Aircraft Spruce a while back, for days like today!

Then on to the right stick. This time I was certain I could install the grip on the fuselage as there was no way a second string would have tightened up magically. I was partially right.
The string did move indeed and I attach the wire to the string, pulling happily... until it came to a sudden stop. First I thought the bulky shrink tube would be the problem and get stuck or something. Pulling back showed that the tube was untouched. I tried and tried again but every time the string came to a sudden stop at the same spot.
Finally I lost my temper and pulled to hard that I tore the string and the end came out.
Turned out that I had added some knots on the string to make sure it wouldn't accidentally get pulled all the way through. How thoughtful of me!!! Only I put the knots on the wrong side of the obstruction!
So the same procedure repeated itself. Getting stick out, back on work bench, pulling a new string, installing wire, sliding grip on, installing stick in the fuselage yet again.


This photo doesn't show how much time went into this apparently so simple installation of control sticks and some microphone switches. I also took the time to check if the switches were actually working. With my luck today I should have found at least one to be defective.
Both worked, so I'll have to pay for that on some other day, I guess.

Checking the rest of the wiring section 31 revealed that most of it is now related to the tailcone which I haven't installed yet, so I decided to continue section 32 which takes care of the control elements. The sticks were in and the next thing is to install the mixer and the flap handle, which makes sense as they both actuate the flaperons. When I get to the rudder cables, I will have to think about installing the tailcone next. I don't think that it would make much sense to keep it off much longer.


Prepping and priming the next parts for the flight controls.


The flap handle ready for installation once the interior has been added.

Jumping Back And Forth

Not following the flow Van's has laid out for us really costs some extra penalty in time. Tonight is a good example for this rule. I wanted to jump ahead and fit the control sticks before continuing the wiring which would have required to run the microphone switch wire up the control stick. After this you wouldn't want to remove the hole setup anymore, so I rather do the final install first and then run the wire.
That started out well. I filed down the brass bushings to fit inside the control column bracket. Then I reduced the length of the guide rod on the end of the control stick where this bushing will sit in so it would just clear the bracket.
But when I wanted to install the whole setup to see if my attempt on the left side was correct, I noticed that installing the roll pushrods after installing the control stick might be a very tricky thing to do as the space around the bottom of the stick is very limited.
I thought about this a moment and then decided to do it right the first time and roll back to the beginning of the whole control stick installation and make those aileron pushrods first, so I could install them along with the control stick.
So then I was working my way through section 32 in reverse. In the end nothing got finished therefore. The pushrods got cut and pre-drilled as well as tapped. Now they are sitting outside and drying the primer I sprayed on.
The left control stick is still lying in the fuselage waiting to get installed to verify that the bracket is holding onto the brass bushing and not touching the guide rod in the stick.
But any progress is still progress, right?

By the way, I still have a leak somewhere in the fuel system. Last night I ran a test after noticing that I am still losing pressure over night by putting 11 psi in the system and shutting the fuel valve. I wanted to find out if the leak is possibly in the suspicious hose connecting supply and return line.
Well, when I came home tonight and checked the pressure was down to 6 psi. Opening the valve dropped it even further down to 2.5 psi. So I have a leak in front and behind the fuel valve. Oh boy! I still know that it's water tight to 10 psi, so I am willing to take a chance with fuel. I will put rags under the possible leaks and put just a small amount in the system to begin with. Maybe pressurizing it again to simulate operating pressure.
But this will have to wait until I am in a better mood to deal with this.

Tomorrow, I'll wrap the stuff up and get it ready to get shipped to Dave in Ohio who wanted to borrow the set for his test.

Headset Harnesses Installed

Today I got mail from Don from Southern Texas and he sent me the left over stereo audio jack that he had to by in a pair from Radio Shack. As he didn't have any use for it he mailed it to me along with the other 47 kOhm resistors. Thanks, Don!!!
That got me right back to where I had left off yesterday. I had planned to jump ahead and fit the control sticks in but by getting the audio jack just in time, I changed plans and rather finished off the wire installation.
So I had to solder 2 47 kOhm resistors into the wire connection to the headphone jack on the co-pilot harness. I did that as well as also adding an additional ground wire that runs the reference from the headphone jack to the little audio out jack. That way I don't have to scuff up the paint that could hardly get covered up effectively by that little hurled nut.


Ready for installation. I drilled a 1/4" hole with a #30 pilot hole and deburred from the outside. The inside had to stay as it was as it wasn't accessible to any tools. The little jack put up a futile fight by not allowing the hurled nut to settle low enough to hold on to the thin skin it was sitting in. I removed it and fitted a handmade washer to it made from scratch aluminum (boy, I'm really getting good at this).
Voila! Resistance was indeed futile in this case and the nut held the little jack in place this time. All the nuts got secured with a little blue Loctite and that should keep them where I left them.


The last thing I wanted to do to finalize the wiring as far as I can go with a Skyview panel available was to add ground wire to the center music out jack (just another 1/8" stereo audio jack). I don't like scuffing them up as they only allow for electric contact in the front through contact of the nut and the nut is too tiny to cover up the damage I would certainly do if I'd use SB wheel to do the job (and I refuse to scuff the paint up manually! This Steward stuff is really tough!).


So far so good!

Now it's up ahead to Section 32 for fitting the control sticks to the control column and then back to the wiring.

Wiring Down to the Goal Line

I had to find a way how to wrap all these loose wires around the pitch servo in the morning. I found a way. Not as pretty as Tony's but it gets the job done and that it no movement, no chafing, etc.


Then it was on to hooking up the roll servo that had the wires run to it yesterday but didn't get hooked up then. The same arrangement of wires had to be done to keep 'em all safe and insulated.


The 12V outlet and the music jack got installed as well and the corresponding wires were run to the panel.


To install the headset jacks O had to finally get the fuselage back on its belly and that was a good occasion to catch up with some steps I had to leave out because the side panels were not accessible.


This is the left one but I did the same on the right side and stored both panels inside the cut out so I can still roll the fuselage on both sides and work inside the tunnel easier.
The headset jack son the left side got installed easily. That is after I realized I had almost thrown out the bag with special washers that came with the headsets. A look into Dave's blog showed me a picture of what I was looking for and that reduced the search in the trash bucket to a matter of seconds. Yay!


What you can not see in the photo is that I ground off the paint and primer around the aft hole that was supposed to get grounded through the metal washer under the mounting nut. The front one, which is the microphone jack, had extra non-conductive washers installed to isolate it from the fuselage, so I helped it by not removing paint and primer on that one.
The same I will do on the right side but I hadn't looked ahead and so now I have to get the optional camera audio out jack and solder it in place before installing the jacks. As the one for the camera goes aft, it should get installed before the other two.

And, finally, and updated panel shot to show how the wires are stacking (and webbing) up. I sure hope this dreaded Skyview option will soon be available to clean this up!


The next steps will jump ahead to 32-05, steps 3 and 4 to fit the control sticks and the bushing to the control column bracket and then it will be back to continue section 31.

Optional Harness and Servo Bus Installed

It was crunch-time with the reed relays today. Fortunately, I have some experience with them although this was about 20 years ago. I'm sure magnetism didn't change since, so the knowledge should still be good.

I used the Ohmmeter to verify that the switches were indeed working and then I was trying to see if they could work in the dedicated mounting position by placing them there. That worked fine and showed it should allow for a lot of freedom in placement.
When I put them there again with the cushioned clamp wrapped around them that impression changed completely!

After a lot of trial and error, I decided to follow Van's advise to grind down the steel tube holding the magnet in the pin by 1/8" and try again. Still no luck. I modified the clamp like I had seen on VAF by removing some of the rubber, by bending it to reposition the switch in respect to the spar pin but, again, to no avail.
It worked fine without the clamp but as soon as the clamp was wrapped around the switch it appeared to be deaf and blind to magnetic fields around it.
Hm, no wonder! The clamp is made from steel. Stainless, I suppose, but still it evidently had a great effect on the switch.

I didn't want to drill a hole in the arm rest like others did to allow the switch to get closer to the magnet. I decided to make my own clamp. I had some silicone tubing lying around that could act as cushion and so I used some scrap material from the wing ribs to make a clamp from aluminum.


I fiddled with the screws in this awkward spot a bit but I got it in place.


This was my first attempt before testing the sensitivity so the switch only triggers when the pin is engaged and correctly positioned in the hole. This position is a bit too sensitive to meet this requirement.
But for then I was happy that it was switching at all, so I went on and made another clamp for the right side.


And it definitely worked. I checked this one very thoroughly as the right side has the ring terminal to ground on it and required some removal of the diligently applied primer and paint to allow for electrical contact to the fuselage.


Then I thought I quickly run the wires and do the fine adjustment. How long could it take to run 3 little wires through a hole, huh?
Well, WRONG! The routing of these wires is insanely inaccessible (at least on the left side) and it cost me a serious amount of time to get the job done and even more time to calm down and just not get a big hammer to solve the problem.


That piece of safety wire in the picture is not there by accident. It saved the day actually. I used it as a guide like a string in more accessible places and helped the first wire through the aft hole by taping it to it. You can't do all two as the hole is too small to allow for the tape and the wires to go through.
The second wire I ran by using the first wire as a guide. Push it all the way back to the front again and tape the second wire to it and guide it through the aft hole by carefully pulling and supporting it from the front.
The picture shows the problematic aft hole.
Finally I could work on the fine adjustment to tone down the sensitivity a bit and make the switch trigger only when the spar pins are in the right positions. The deflection on both switches is about the same to accomplish the goal. Unfortunately, my camera refused to give me a good shot of the switches but you can still see the angle, so they are somewhat helpful if you go that route.


This was the left side.


And this is the blurry right.

Eventually I was back at routing wires. Much more enjoyable compared to fiddling with reed switches! Here you see the optional harness routed.


Again I used a few pieces of blue tape for holding the harness together while routing it through the snap bushings. It just makes things so much easier.
Then the servo bus got installed, running from the panel base to the pitch servo where it gets connected to this servo as well as the bus getting extended to run all the way to the aft of the forward fuselage to get hooked up to the roll servo.


Crimping the spade connectors on is a simple job of matching the same colors together. Just watch out that you use the right connector gender before crimping them in. Then all that was left to do was to actually connected the bus to the pitch servo.


What I have yet to figure out is how to tie down this bunch of cables so that it looks good and doesn't chafe on anything. Tony Tessitore did an incredible job on his whole plane. Looks like it rolled out a German luxury car plant inside and out. I think I check on his photo bucket to see how he did it ....

Main Wire Harness Installed

On Thursday night I didn't post although I found the time to do some preparatory work for the wire installation. Nothing major, so I didn't care to do an extra post for that. Just verified that the counter plates for the wing wire contacts have the right side and do not interfere with the side skins, so I riveted them to those triangular metal frames and put them away for now. With the fuselage on the side all the time they shouldn't be on anyway.

I also got a replacement pressure gauge as my previous one stopped working either because water got in it or because I slightly overpressured it accidentally for half a second or so. Anyway, it didn't want to reset to 0 anymore and all the readings seemed to be pretty weird. I installed the new one that now goes up to 30 psi (as a precaution) and I connected the return line with a hose to the main supply line. It's now pressurized to 9.5 psi and still holding. I will let it sit over night to see if this is it. I sure hope so.

Today I started the wiring part of section 31 and this looked pretty shocking.


Fortunately for me I soon found out that I missed one snap bushing when routing the main harness and so I got another chance of making this look decent and preventing mistakes.


While I was pulling back the out the harness from my previous mistake I taped the bundle together every foot and so the harness became more like one long, thick cable and much more hand-able.

When I put those fans I could help myself but smile about that note that says that you shouldn't over tighten the screws as you could break off the edges of the fan. Well, 25 years ago when I was playing with electronics a lot and building PCBs and such, it was well known that you don't use a long screw on such fans without a bearing in between the edges to prevent this bending from happening. Nothing fancy, just a piece of plastic tube cut to length. I had a feeling that I still had some of that in of my sorters and sure enough I found just the right amount to make four of those tubes. If you look closely you can see them in the picture.


The first connection had to be made. This is hooking up the wires with the fuel flow sensor. Mine is an FT-60 as in all newer models.


Then the rest of the harness was to be run through the tunnel. Now it looks much more cleaned up.


Take a closer look at the conduit in the center section. I ran the 3 strings through it as described in the manual. But instead of running a new string every time I run a wire through there I just closed the string and made a loop out of it. That way I won't lose a string and can run wire after wire with it. Worked well so far.


Finally, when I got to the point of installing those pesky reed relays I decided to just pull the parts and prepare them but not to start this tricky installation when I'm tired. That is certainly a job for the morning when I have more patience.


And then, just before closing shop, I took a photo of the pressure gause to remind me in the morning what it read last night. A bit fuzzy, probably too close.

Section 31 Started

On my way home from work I picked up some handlebar grips for an ATV.


They had a limited selection but these looked nice and, more importantly, felt good. They almost feel like gel grips but not so much as to getting a wobbly feeling. I want to enjoy those responsive controls!
I bought them at Cycle Gear and the number in the following picture is their stock number. Also notice the recess in the top of the grip. It could take a metal inlay to stiffen the top for the microphone switch.


When you go shopping for your grips make sure you tell the clerk they are not for a motor bike, they don't have the gas twist grip! Otherwise you'll have one grip (the "right" one) being too big for the 7/8" tube. ATVs have handlebar grips were both are the same size for the inner diameter.
After cutting off the base of the grip they were ready for installation but I want to wait until the paint cured a little more. Would be horrible if it came off because of the friction from pushing the grips on.



Then it was on to page 31-02 and building those counterparts for the fuselage that match the electrical connectors in the wing.


See that template in the top of the picture? It's good that I keep bags from previous kits that still have content along with the list that describes what is in which bag. Turned out this template was part of the Wing Kit, gets used there on one side and then stored away to be recovered ... NOW. It took me just a few seconds to find it and verify that it is the right part.
Drilling and cutting was easy and I took extra care to not drill into the palm of my hand. See? Pain is a really good learning motivation! This even trains an old guy who's set in his ways - like me.

The riveting of those metal contacts onto the plastic wafer was a bit odd as it turned out I couldn't use clecos to hold the parts in place while riveting the first rivet. The body of the cleco was partially covering the hole I wanted to get the first rivet through and so I had to learn that in this case a cleco is not necessary. Just put the rivet through the first contact and hold it in place with a finger while putting the opposite contact onto the stem of the rivet and just pull the rivet. The force is not too strong on the contacts so you can still turn them, align them and put the second rivet in.
Once I found that out, finishing all the contacts was a question of minutes.


I had written a note down to make sure that the plastic wafer should get checked for clearance with the side skin before riveting it to the metal frame that will hold the assembly onto the fuselage. As my fuselage is currently covered with a tarp, sitting on its side and is stored away, I didn't want to open that box tonight. We have construction going on in the backyard right now and they should finish tomorrow. Before then I don't want to move the tarp on the fuselage.