| day |
notes |
hours |
| 5 |
Check lengths of aluminium pipe needed (1/4" fuel return line firewall to tank C adaptor - 1.75m, 6ft; 1/4" vent line F18 to shelf - 750mm, 3ft; 1/4" vent shelf to floor - 550mm, 2ft; 3/8" vent tank C to F18 - 550mm, 2ft) and order them from LAS Aerospace. Individual lengths of 1/4" cheaper than a 12ft coil. Look online for possible other sources for BLS4R11N pip-pin. Several US companies list it but no prices shown. Place some RFQs (Requests For Quotes). Following up my concern that the prop brush bracket is very close to the back of the prop driver flange, open up the trailer and have a look at the fittings on the prop. There are 6 captive M8 bolts with bushes, washers, and stiffnuts, but they are on about 80mm PCD so do not use the outer ring of holes I was worried about. A sample bush removed from the prop fits snugly into some of the holes on the engine flange but is more of an interference fit in others. The engine flange is about 10mm thick; the bush flange is about 2mm thick and the nuts are about 8mm thick. The bolts protrude about 24mm from the aft side of the prop hub so, allowing 2.5mm free length (2 threads) for safety, that leaves 1.5mm for a washer or maybe 2 (forgot to check their thickness). Checking the aluminium sheet stock in the trailer, I have 3 sheets left about 330mm x 450mm, which is nowhere near enough for the baffles required on Neville Eyre's cowl. Move the springs LC-042G-2 and CLIP3 from box 19 in the garage to box 20 in the trailer. Notice a couple of black (ebonite?) round bars 25mm x 150mm, labelled 211363 in box 19. Can't find them in the parts list. Remove the D-sub min connector from the controller end of the prop brushes cable and slide the red and black wires out of the sleeving, leaving only the blue & green/yellow wires. First reply to RFQ offers one BLS4R11N for $497 so I politely decline that! Next quote is $200 so still pretty steep. |
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| 6 |
Aluminium pipes delivered from LAS Aerospace. Browsing through the LAA TL 3.17 list of mods, find that G-RICS has got approval for Neville's cowl under mod 13452. Look online for pictures of G-RICS and they do indeed show Neville's cowl. Submit a query to Woodcomp UK agent Kevin Dilks of Special Aviation Services via his website about lubrication etc when fitting prop. |
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| 7 |
Kevin Dilks replies by e-mail saying just a smear of grease needed on the hollow locating dowels (what I called bushes) and wondering why I got the prop direct instead of through him. Reply saying I ordered before he took over the agency and asking about inspections. |
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| 8 |
Kevin Dilks replies saying no need for a pre-install inspection if the prop has been stored clean & dry. No washers needed between nuts and dowels, and keep brush mounting block gap as small as possible (<2mm). Try out hot-wire cutter on a scrap of blue foam - works perfectly, but need to feed quite slowly. The block I intend to cut the seatpan fillers out of just fits within the bow of the cutter. |
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| 10 |
Check size of MPS-1/A port (4mm) and Rotax carb balance port (6mm). Send e-mail to Mark Burton asking for filter recommendations. Instrument module floor where fire extinguisher is to be mounted is about 180mm x 300mm, so an aluminium doubler to cover that full area would consume less than half of one of the sheets I have in stock. However, will need to check what clearance is needed for the row of instruments in the sub-panel. Fire extinguisher bracket holes are just about 4.8mm but I think should be enlarged to 6mm for M6 screws. They are on centres 7" x 7/8" (or about 178mm x 22mm). |
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| 11 |
Seek, without success, in local electrical wholesalers for crimp tool to use on the Rotax and Smart Avionics non-insulated crimp terminals. Search online and find that the Ideal Industries ratchet crimp pliers that I have already will accept a die set appropriate to those terminals. Find that Heamar in UK stock them so order a set. Check the Rotax spark plug sizes - one of my socket sets has a spark plug socket marked 5/8" - 16mm which seems to fit reasonably well. |
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| 12 |
Buy an Odyssey PC625 battery from Groves, and a CTEK smart charger to keep it float charged until it goes into service. The smart charger shows it to be fully charged within a few hours. Send query to Kevin Dilks of Special Aviation Services asking how capscrews securing propellor brush bracket should be locked. He replies saying there should have been lockwashers supplied, but he also likes to use Loctite 221 (not as strong as 243) on the threads. |
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| 13 |
Not happy with the plastic capacitor clip that came with the Vishay 22000µF capacitor in the potentially hot engine compartment. Look online for a metal one. Farnell have something suitable, so order one, and also some panel-mount high-brightness 12V LEDs and some M8 lockwashers for the prop brush mount. Send e-mail to Alan Twigg asking if he has templates for Neville's cowl baffles. Offer up Schicke GR6 regulator and Vishay 22000µF capacitor to port firewall face - seems plenty of room for them, plus the crowbar, relay etc on about a 150mm length of 25mm x 50mm x 3mm aluminium angle. Offer up Odyssey battery to starboard firewall shelf. It will cover one of the fixing screws for the F14 instrument module so the box to retain it at the base will need to allow access to that. Had originally assumed the battery box would be made as a glass-fibre layup but could easily build a location box from 1" x 1" x 1/8" aluminium angle. To prevent upward movement and tipping forward would require a strap well secured to firewall - which has the flat face of F14 against it at that point. However, on checking there is a tiny gap between the two, as evidenced by slight movement of the F14 panel, so there might be room for rivet or shallow screw heads. To allow the battery to be lifted out, the firewall attachment could be a length of MS20001-3 hinge (of which I think I have some spare). Another possibility would be to bond a woven strap to the firewall all the way down the back of the battery so that it would be mainly in shear stress rather than peel. Will need to investigate what sort of straps are available. Look at how I might remove the Rotax cylinder shroud. Try loosening the the clamps on the hoses from the forward cylinder heads but the elbow fittings protrude beyond the shroud and obstruct removal anyway. Undo the socket screws holding the port one and that appears to allow the shroud to be removed at that point. Will have to remove the induction manifolds too in order to get at the aft hose elbows. Stop there and leave it until I can check the torque settings etc for all the capscrews. Check how much room there is for an aluminium doubler on the floor of the F14 instrument module to support the fire extinguisher bracket. Seems to be about 4mm clear underneath the MGL instruments so the doubler could come right to the front, assuming the switches & fuses are also sufficiently clear. Keeping it just clear of the busbars at the aft edge, the doubler could be about 90mm x 300mm. Find a piece of aluminium (blank rackmount panel) that could be cut down to that size. Look again at the crowbar and associated stuff; there is just room for everything on a 100mm length of the aluminium angle, including the crowbar itself secured by a tie-wrap. However, for easier fitting to the firewall once populated, it would be worthwhile adding 10 or 15mm at each end for fixing screws. The ammeter shunt, fuses, isolator and battery breaker could be mounted on a similar piece of aluminium angle further over towards the battery (and maybe also the starter solenoid?). Without the starter solenoid, the other items would occupy 200mm of the 50mm x 25mm angle. The (small) mounting flange can go upwards in this case to make easier access to the fixings. Can't do that on the crowbar one because of the relay mount. |
2533.8 |
| 14 |
Check Rotax manuals for torque settings. The heavy maintenance manual has a list of torque values for various screw sizes on page 00-00-00 33, but does not mention torque settings on any of the pages referring to the induction manifold or cooling elbow screws. The illustrated parts catalogue gives no torque for the M6 manifold screws nor for the M6 coolant elbow screws, so the default values of 10Nm (90in lb) should be used. No sealant or similar is specified. Notice in passing that a screw M3.5 is shown closing off the takeoff port on the balance pipe - will have to see if that is already threaded to accept a screw - could be useful for the restrictor. Reply from Alan Twigg received last night, offering tracings of his card templates, so accept the offer. Snip the tie-wrap holding the starboard hose to the ignition harness. Remove the starboard forward cooling hose elbow. Remove port induction manifold and disconnect it from the balance pipe to let it move clear. Remove port aft cooling hose elbow, taking great care not to drop anything into the open intake ports. Remove screws from starboard induction manifold but also need to remove screw holding ignition module to allow the manifold & carb to lift clear. Remove starboard aft cooling hose elbow. Try to take out the cylinder shroud but it won't come past the fuel pump. Undo the fuel pump fixings and remove it, which finally allows shroud to be wriggled off. Check fuel pump fixings in illustrated parts manual and the nuts are tightened to 15Nm and also have Loctite 243 on the threads. Re-assemble fuel pump to gearbox, transferring torque from torque wrench to ring spanner by feel because there isn't enough room for a socket driver. Re-make magneto shorting lead with heatshrink on the soldered spills and a M8 ring to fit on a tapped hole exposed by the removal of the shroud. Check how starter solenoid would fit on the aluminium angle with the isolator and shunt etc. Wiring run looks OK, and 250mm length of angle would accommodate everything. Mark and cut off 250mm of the 25mm x 50mm x 3mm aluminium angle. Capacitor clip, lockwashers and LEDs delivered from Farnell. On-axis, the LEDs are not nearly as bright as some of the others I have, but show a much more even illumination across a wide angle. Will need to try them out in bright sunshine before making a decision. The panel fitting is neat and secure, and they look very nice fitted. Mark out the 250mm length of aluminium angle for the battery isolator. Drill the centre hole to 22mm with a step drill then open slightly with the taper reamer to accept the spigot of the isolator. Mark through the mounting holes at about 45 degrees and drill 5mm. Fit the isolator and offer up the solenoid. Mark through its mounting holes. |
2537.3 |
| 15 |
Drill the aluminium angle for the starter solenoid and trial assemble. Get out some brass nuts for it but can't find any spring washers, then remember that a couple of nuts & spring washers were in the pack of connectors etc that came with the engine. (No nut for the starter motor terminal, though!) Offer up shunt and mark through its fixing holes. Drill holes and trail assemble. Check wiring diagram and decide on fuseholder positions. Mark out for fuseholders and circuit-breaker. Step drill 14mm for the fuseholders and 12mm for the circuit breaker. Crimp connector jaws delivered from Heamar. Notice that the strobe connectors will also need this type of crimp, so the purchase was even more worthwhile. Do a test crimp with 20 AWG Raychem 44 using an uninsulated blade connector (supplied with the other Rotax connectors for the starter solenoid, but will be replaced by an insulated one). Needs quite a bit of effort but looks satisfactory, with both conductor and insulation crimp well secured. Check the latest LEDs in sunshine - not very impressive. I think the best solution is to use the smaller of the very-high-brightness types, in the bezels but secured with epoxy rather than the press-in plastic inset which would only work on bare spills. Realise I need room for another fuseholder on the aluminium angle, for the starter-engaged warning lead. Mark and drill 14mm for the third fuseholder. File the 3 fuseholder holes to the required oval outline with notches for the keys. Temporarily assemble it all and try out for position on firewall. Would be good to keep it fairly high to leave room of the earthing block below, but the higher it is the harder it will be to reach the isolator key from the oil inspection hatch. Open the trailer, take the Rotax cylinder shroud out there for storage and have a look at the cowl. It seems just about possible to reach near the top of the firewall with a bare arm. If it proves impossible, I may have to settle for only being able to operate the isolator when the top cowl is off - or maybe I could arrange some sort of extension shaft accessible through a tiny hole directly above it. Dismantle the earthing block and find that the (brass) 5/16" x 18 UNC bolt is not fully threaded, which is why there are so many washers. Find an alternative steel bolt threaded to the head, and then consider that it might be useful to have the large ring termination spaced out by the stack of supplied washers anyway so that it is a bit proud of the tabs. Get out required terminals and install wires 103, 106, 107, 114, 304 & 305. Wire 112 (as shown on the main circuit diagram v11) does not exist - the diode anode lead is crimped directly to a ring terminal and the cathode lead will need to be extended with a short piece of insulated wire to be commoned at the blade connector with wire 111 to the starter switch. Mark off a 130mm length of the 50mm x 25mm x 3mm aluminium angle and cut it off. Start to position items for marking out holes and realise that the mounting tab of the relay can go though the angle to mount on the short flange. This means that the short flange can be upwards and thus accessible for mounting holes, so the extra length is not needed after all. Mark at 100mm and cut off. Mark centre for 30A breaker and step drill 12mm. Temporarily fit breaker and mark for relay mounting tab. Start to drill along the marked line from the outside of the angle with 1.2mm bit, but break it on the 2nd hole because it got too close to the inner face on breakthrough. Drive the broken bit out with a pin punch and try a 1.5mm drill bit from the inside of the angle instead, which is more successful. Try to join up the holes with a Swiss file, but manage to break the point of that too! Instead use small cutting disc on Dremel and that does the job nicely. Position the relay and mark through the fixing hole. Drill 5mm and countersink deeply on outer face to bring a 10-32 CSK screw well below the surface of the flange. Temporarily mount breaker and relay to check position of other parts. |
2542.6 |
| 16 |
Check bore of takeoff nipple on carb balance pipe with a good light and it is not threaded. Have M3.5 taps in stock but no dies so will have to order one of those for making the restrictor connexion. Mark and drill letter W at opposite end of aluminium angle for 5A breaker and file hole to required oval shape. Trial assemble and mark hole positions for crowbar tie-wraps and fuseholder. Drill all 2.5mm. Open fuseholder hole to 12mm with step drill and file to required D-shape. Mark and drill 5mm for mounting holes on small flange. Assemble it all, with a temporary screw holding the relay. Fit terminals and install wires 121, 125, 127 & 130, leaving the ends of 125 & 130 as flying leads. Offer up to firewall and there seems to be a reasonable space for it on the port side along with the regulator and capacitor. The regulator should be mid-way up the face to allow good airflow above & below, but the capacitor and crowbar assembly need to be kept fairly high so as to leave room for the firewall penetration lower down. Check fire extinguisher position - it will be mounted with the base inboard to allow access to the release clip and the inboard pair of holes should be 1.75" from the inboard end of the doubler. |
2548.2 |
| 17 |
Alter the regulator & crowbar diagram to match the actual connexions made, edit the wiring schedule to match and flag the connexions made. |
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| 24 |
Order some 10-32 screws & nuts, plus some M3, M4 M5 & M6 spring washers from Westfield Fasteners. |
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| 25 |
Order M3.5 die from Tracy Tools. Replace bare blade connectors on Schicke GR6 regulator leads with insulated crimp connectors. Measure the OD of a pair of single-screened wires - about 4mm. So a M6 bolt could be drilled out to carry the mag leads through the firewall. Assemble a representation of the main wire bundle to pass through the firewall; propeller brush wires in sleeve, tacho wires in sleeve (long enough for joint to be aft of firewall), MAP sensor wire bunch, 1 x 10AWG, 1 x 12AWG, 2 x 20 AWG & 10 x 22AWG. Held in a releasable tie-wrap, that bundle measures 0.4" to 0.6" across, so the Aircraft Spruce firewall penetration kit needed will be the 0.75" size. Undo port intake manifold screws and lift carb enough to release the balance pipe. It's quite a tight fit and needs a lot of effort even with the clamps removed completely. Tap the balance-pipe nipple M3.5. Blow out with the airline and pull through a piece of tissue then blow out again. Re-fit balance pipe to manifolds and replace port manifold, doing the capscrews up to 10Nm again. Remove the LAS Aerospace labels from the aluminium pipes and clean off all the adhesive residue with unleaded petrol (which takes a but of time). Store all 1/4" lengths back in the cardboard tube for safety. Clean up one end of the 2' length of 3/8" pipe with pipe reamer & steel wool and blow out. Oil the flaring tool and the pipe and make a flare. Offer flared end up to the AN822-6D elbow at the top of the filler neck and estimate amount of bend needed. Slide on a sleeve and make the bend. Check it and bend a bit more. Make a reverse bend to align pipe with side of filler neck. Make a gentle arc to follow curve of filler neck then bend outwards towards tank fitting C. Offer up and adjust several times until reasonable alignment is achieved with fittings at both ends, then cut to length (only 40mm spare, my estimate of the length was quite close!). Check alignment again, fit 2 nuts and 2nd sleeve then make flare on bottom end. Blow out with airline. Offer up and with further small tweaks both nuts go on and can be tightened up. The pipe run looks pleasingly neat and tidy. |
2551.6 |
| 26 |
M3.5 die delivered from Tracy Tools and various spring washers plus 10-32 screws & nuts delivered from Westfield Fasteners. |
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| 28 |
Start to draw up the restrictor for the manifold pressure sensor line in CADintosh, basing it on a length of 1/4" hex brass. |
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| 29 |
Finish drawing of restrictor & print out. Cut off about 25mm of 1/4" hex brass and chuck in lathe. Face off and turn down 10mm to 4.5mm diameter. Turn down inner 7mm to 4mm diameter. Centre-drill end then drill 2mm 21mm deep. Reverse in chuck, turn down end to 3.5mm, leaving 5mm hex in centre of workpiece. Face off cylindrical section to 8mm. Centre-drill very lightly and drill 1mm through into the 2mm bore. Fit tailstock dieholder and with die expanded as much as possible cut M3.5 thread. Reverse die and run it up to the shoulder again. Blow out and try fit on balance pipe nipple - not a very tight fit on the threads but some Loctite should fix that. Find a length of silicon tubing about 4mm bore that will suit both the restrictor and the sensor and is long enough to reach from the balance pipe to the firewall. Find a M8 x 30mm stainless steel bolt, plus large M8 washers and a spring washer. Chuck bolt on threads in lathe and centre-drill head. With 3.2mm split-point hard-material drill bit, start to drill through. Progress slower as depth increases. |
2553.8 |
| 30 |
Continue drilling through the M8 stainless steel bolt 3.2mm. A change of drill bit doesn't seem to help much with the progress, but eventually break through. Change bit and drill through 4mm. Check that 2 off single screened wires will pass through - they do easily. Chamfer end of hole with countersink. Reverse bolt in chuck and countersink other end of hole. Blow out and store in plastic bag with washers. Will need to get a stainless steel M8 nut - maybe a local yacht chandler might have one to save raising another online order. Replace the temporary screw holding the crowbar relay with a 0.5" CSK one. Replace all temporary nuts on the crowbar and starter/shunt assemblies with stainless steel, adding spring washers. Replace plain washers on M5 shunt terminals with SS spring washers. Almost done when I manage to drop the whole assembly and it lands on the 30A battery breaker, cracking it apart. Check prices online; Parts For Aircraft (where I got the original) is now more expensive than LAS Aerospace so e-mail LAS Aerospace asking to add a 30A breaker to the outstanding order for the firewall penetration kit. Search online for terminal boots for the 4AWG terminals, find some that might be useful at Electrical Car Services and order a few, with some braid sleeving that might be good for keeping tidy the wires to the oil and CHT sensors. Hacksaw off one folded edge of the aluminium blank rack panel selected for the doubler to support the fire extinguisher. Smooth with millennicut file. Mark 300mm length and hacksaw off. Mark 90mm width and hacksaw off. Clean up edges and round corner slightly with fine file. Mark line 1.75" from one end for first pair of holes and mark them out. Mark 2nd pair through the bracket and centre-pop all 4. Drill 5mm and open the holes in the extinguisher bracket to 5mm. Using the doubler lying on the floor of the F14 instrument module as a template, drill the holes in the base of F14, dropping a 10-32 screw through each hole to maintain alignment before drilling the next hole. Position bracket underneath F14 and fit first screw with a plain nut. Remaining screws reluctant to fit, so drill through other holes from underneath in turn to improve alignment and insert screws with temporary plain nuts. Fit extinguisher and position seems OK. |
2556.1 |
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