Europa #435 G-RODO Build Journal - 2020 10

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day	notes	hours
8	Thread new wire 104 through the SRBF bush in the aft baffle and fit it to the starter motor live terminal with an Aerotight nut (don't want to take any chances of seizing up with the Inloc prevailing-torque stiffnut again). Try to fit the other end of wire 104 to the starter solenoid but with the thicker terminal lug there isn't quite enough thread for the spring washer and the 2 terminals (wire 104 & wire 114). I can't use a stiffnut as the stud appears to be copper. So discard the spring washer and fit the nut with Loctite 243. Re-fit the starter solenoid bracket to the firewall. Fit a new M6 x 25mm capscrew to the starter motor earth lug and slip the terminal of wire 101 onto it. Fit an Aerotight nut - with the restricted access, this is much easier by placing the nut in a ring spanner and keeping it in place with a small piece of gaffer tape on the underside to stop it dropping out. However the extra thickness of the terminal lug and of the Aerotight nut mean that the nut is not in safety. So, replace the 25mm capscrew with 30mm and re-assemble. Ensure wire is in correct orientation and the route to battery is correct before tightening nut. Re-fit screws and bolts holding aft baffle to firewall and footwells, and the securing screw for the alternator lead P-clip. The starboard bolt on the firewall is not keen to enter the anchor nut thread at first, but once the other fixings are done up it goes in OK. Tidy up a few tools - I seem to spend too much time looking for tools that have mysteriously gone AWOL.	3366.4
9	Add to the GANTT chart an item for the carving out of the starboard seat blue foam for the stall-warner sensor. Edit a few other items completed and update the GANTT chart on the website. Take out a few odds and ends from the starboard baggage well and vacuum it out. Shorten and abrade the tabs on 3 off corner 16mm conduit clips. Climb into baggage bay and check locations for conduit clips on the curved section of conduit between the starboard side and the overhead. Abrade the bonding areas. Collect gloves, acetone, tissues, 90 second Araldite, mixing tray, etc and bring to baggage bay. Degrease with acetone the clip tabs and the bonding areas. Mix a small batch of Araldite 90-sec epoxy, apply it to the tabs of a clip and hold it in place over the centre of the conduit against the fuselage wall and D-bulkhead, with a small piece of polyethylene sheet interposed to stop the gloves adhering. After a count of 90 release the pressure and the clip drops off! Maybe the temperature (15C) is a bit low for it to cure in the specified time. Clean up and try again with a slightly larger batch of epoxy, mixing it for longer before applying. This time keep the finger pressure on for a count of 120 and that seems to be enough for it to cure sufficiently. Repeat for the other 2 clips, near the bottom and top of the conduit. The top clip does not conform well and one tab fails to adhere on first attempt. More fresh epoxy and a careful application of pressure fixes it. Collect the equipment and climb out again. Now that it is properly supported in the conduit, adjust the overhead length of wire 616 to reach the edge of the windscreen opening, which should provide enough of a service loop for making the terminations in the headphone-socket box. At the firewall end of wire 616, cut it to length, label and fit blade connecter. Fit to common earth point. Feed 22AWG stock through hole in spar pin support, through starboard baggage bay conduit (pulled by a length of RG400 as before), curved D-bulkhead conduit and overhead conduit. Pull it through to match length of wire 616. Label the free end as wire 615. At the starboard seat end, cut it to length to match wire 614.	3368.5
10	Label and terminate wire 615 at starboard seat end. Pull 22AWG wire stock from F14 Instrument Module through cockpit starboard side conduit using RG400 leader as before. Wire slips out of insulating tape before I can get it through the baggage bay conduit. Re-tape it to RG400 using duct tape which has better grab. Take wire through D-bulkhead and overhead conduit. Pull out to edge of windscreen aperture and label as wire 418. Cut at IM end to reach comm radio when panel laid flat and fit tape flag. Similarly draw in and label wire 416. I have 2 stocks of single screened cable. Consider using the shorter coil doubled for cables 406 & 405 but on checking the length required it is not quite long enough for both cables. (Now wondering if I even have enough screened cable on the other drum for all the long runs to the overhead - probably should unreel it to check length and see if I need to order some more.) To save time, tape the free ends of both stocks of single-screened to the RG400 and draw them through as for the previous wires. Somewhat harder going with the larger taped bulge and the cockpit conduit filling up, but by doing it in sections it is OK. Once drawn in to length at the overhead, realise I won't know which is which for labelling. However, the 2 stocks are slightly different OD so by checking them with the digital caliper it's easy to identify them. Cut both to length at the IM end. Label cable 406 at both ends with tape flags, as it seems I haven't yet printed out the cable labels. After finishing in the garage, print out the labels for all cables.	3370.6
12	In wiring database, add fields for "wire installed in route" and "cable installed in route". Add buttons for easy navigation between route lists and wires/cables. Notice that I haven't recorded the terminations for the stall warner sounder. Shrink labels onto overhead ends of cables 406 and 405. Add tape flag to F14 Instrument Module end of cable 405. Open overhead socket box to check stall warner sounder connexions (1 male blade & 1 female blade) and add terminations for wires 615 & 616 to wiring database. Print out wiring route lists showing wires and cables in each route. On Saturday I was having a lot of trouble closing the crimp pliers when I didn't have anything solid to lean on - my hands no longer seem to have the strength for it. Do some online research and find a very nice-looking pneumatic crimper by Katsu at AIM Tools . However, not sure if I need something quite so expensive - they also have a manual ratchet crimper at £23.99 which looks as though it would have better mechanical advantage than the one I'm using now, so order it. I still have well over 200 crimps to make; if the manual one does not quickly prove to be significantly easier to use I will still have plenty to do if I need to get the pneumatic one.	3371.0
13	Mark top and side locations of D-bulkhead on outside of fuselage for checking wire lengths required. From windscreen edge to top of D-bulkhead is 1800mm. Down side of fuselage from overhead to side conduit is 700mm. D-bulkhead to firewall is 2000mm. Firewall to radio panel is 900mm. The total length is 5.4m - wonder if I've got enough wire for that. Lay the steel tape on the garage floor locked at 5.5m. Weigh down the free end of the single screened cable beside the tape and unreel to the full length of the tape. Cut at about 5.6m to be on the safe side. Repeat for another 5.6m length, and there is still some left on the drum. Unroll the larger stock hank of 12AWG against the tape. Doubled at the half-way point it only makes 4.8m, but that should be just about enough to reach the fuseblock and earth terminal. If there is slightly less length for the service loop at the overhead that will probably be OK, so cut it at the half-way point. The 12AWG is quite stiff, so try pushing it through the starboard cockpit conduit by itself and it goes really easily. The 14AWG also goes through with no bother, but the single screened is not stiff enough to push and will need to be drawn with the RG400 leader as before. Push the 14AWG stock forwards through the starboard cockpit conduit from the headrest and draw it up into the F14 Instrument Module. Pull it across to reach the strobe switch on the sub-panel and fit a tape flag as wire 202. Take the stock hank back over the baggage bay and through the D-bulkhead. Cut off at a generous length to reach the strobe PSU. Feed the free end through the starboard baggage bay conduit. Shrink a label on it as wire 202 and crimp on a terminal. Connect to flying lead on strobe PSU. Dress the wire on the back of the D-bulkhead and feed excess wire forward through both conduits. Similarly feed in 14AWG wire 204, label it, crimp on a terminal and connect it to the common earth point. Take the stock hank back to check length and cut off. Feed it through the conduit. Disconnect the other end from the earth point and pull the wire through aft to get more length to play with. Shrink on label 204 and terminate - but forgot that this one needs a male blade so cut off and re-do. Connect it to the flying lead on the strobe PSU and feed the slack forward again so it can be re-connected to the earth point. Push one of the cut lengths of 12AWG forward through the starboard cockpit conduit and draw it into the IM. Realise that it goes to the 3/8" UNC terminal post and I haven't yet fitted that. Find a suitable location for it on the floor of the IM. I want to use 10-32 stiffnuts (MS21042-3) but the counterbores in the terminal feet won't quite admit a 1/4'" socket. Drill the counterbores out to 10mm on the bench drill. Position the terminal post and drill through one foot with a 5mm hex bit in the IXO screwdriver (as there isn't room for the cordless drill and I can't be bothered getting out the Tight Fit Drill kit). Open the hole to 7/32" from the underside with the cordless drill. Put a 7/32" drill bit in the hole to keep the terminal aligned and drill 2nd hole 5mm. Open it to 7/32". Fit 10-32 x 3/8" SS button-head socket screws from underneath and stiffnuts in the counterbores and tighten up. Label the wire 214 and crimp a 10mm ring on it. Drop onto newly-installed terminal post and draw back slack into conduit. Feed free end back through to overhead as usual. When fully drawn in there is actually a little spare length, so trim it to match the other wires and label it. As the conduit is getting quite full now, decide to do the screened cables next as the RG400 leader takes a lot more room than the cables themselves. Mark one of the prepared lengths of screened cable with a green felt-tip pen at both ends to make identification simple after pulling in. To get a secure joint between the RG400 and the screened cables, decide to use adhesive-lined heatshrink sleeving. The screened cables are a bit small so shrink a short length of transparent heatshrink onto each one first. Then use a generous length of adhesive-lined heatshrink to join the pair of screened cable to the RG400. Draw the assembly backwards through the starboard cockpit conduit. It gets too hard going to push the RG400 back down the baggage bay conduit at the same time, so withdraw and do it one section of conduit at a time. (Probably would have been easier to do this before drawing in the length of 12AWG, but ho-hum!) Although I have to pull quite hard to get the assembly past the chicane in the conduit, the heatshrink holds perfectly. Draw it all the way through to the overhead. Match the length to the other wires and cut off the heatshrink. Shrink label 404 on the overhead end of the green-marked cable. Draw the other marked end up into the IM and put a tape flag on it. Likewise label the remaining cable 403. Push the cut length of 12AWG into the conduit and IM as for wire 214. Label it 215, crimp a terminal and connect to the earth point. Push it back and around to the overhead. It turns out to be the exact same length as the other wires! Shrink a label on it. Update the wiring database with today's work. Considering that the connectors for the strobe heads will be a bit fiddly to assemble, decide to make them up out in the open and draw the cables through from the aft end of the baggage bay conduits. Strip outer insulation from the end of the 3-core screened stock hank for about 125mm. Work open the screen with a fine point close to the start of the stripped length and extract the inners. Cut the inners to about 25mm. Slide on the 2 sets of black heatshrink supplied with the strobe kit. Shrink on label 235. Decide to connect orange/white to the kit red wire, blue/white to the kit black wire and white to the kit green wire. Crimp a pin to the orange/white inner using the Ideal crimper with the 22-18 slot of the 30-586 die. Not sure if the crimp has captured the bare wire properly - will have to check the continuity from the other end once cut to length.	3376.0
15	Manual crimper delivered from AIM Tools . Try it out on a couple of red crimps. Although the handles are longer than my old crimper, it seems no easier to make a full crimp with it, and it's more fiddly to get a terminal correctly lined up in the jaws. In fact even without a terminal inserted in the jaws, it requires significant force to close fully. Decide to order the Katsu AM-30 pneumatic crimper. Check the length required for the screened strobe cable from the PSU to the starboard wing root and cut off. Strip about 25mm of the outer insulation off the wing root end and invert the screen back over the outer. Strip the orange/white wire and check the resistance to the crimped pin at the PSU end. It's fine - 0.6 Ohm and no change when pulled or wiggled. Strip the other 2 cores at the PSU end and crimp pins onto them. Insert pins into shell: orange/white (=red in strobe kit) in position 1; blue/white (=black in kit) in position 2; white (=green in kit) in position 3. Slide up large heatshrink sleeve onto shell and shrink. Slide small heatshrink sleeve over the tail of the large one and shrink.	3376.6
16	Check journal and fasteners database for strobe PSU fixings; they are M4 x 16mm button head SS. Where the cable 235 screen at the PSU end was folded back under the kit-supplied heatshrink, apply and shrink a short length of adhesive-lined heatshrink to dress the screen out towards the end of the cable. Crimp a 4mm red ring onto the end of the screen. Plug the connector into the lower socket on the PSU. Connect the ring to the lower aft fixing screw. Try pushing the cable forwards through the starboard baggage bay conduit and am slightly surprised to find that it goes quite easily (of course there is no chicane in this section of conduit). Take the free end out through the grommet in the fuselage side. Open trailer and check distance of wing conduits from spar aft sides. Starboard 150mm, port 180mm. Cut cable at a suitable distance to mate with the cable in the conduit. Strip 25mm of outer insulation, roll back screen. Shrink on label 235. Apply a length of adhesive heatshrink to cover the screen.	3377.5
17	It appears that I did not check the position of the hole in the fuselage side for the OAT and strobe wires. Have a look at the wing roots in the trailer and it seems it should be OK. The grommet is about 170mm above the bottom of the spar and that puts it just on the curve of the fairing. Check what heatshrink sleeving will be needed to cover the strobe wing-root connectors and taper down to the cable - 3 consecutive sizes will be required. Slide lengths of each size onto the cable. Strip inners and crimp a socket insert on each one. Push the inserts into the shell: orange-white in position 1 (ridge end) to mate with red inner in cable through wing conduit; blue-white in position 2 to mate with black inner in wing cable; white in position 3 to mate with green inner in wing cable, leaving position 4 empty. Slide up the heatshrink sleeves in turn and shrink them, overlapping in succession. Shorten the tabs on a couple of 4mm composite cable clips for securing cable 235 to the fuselage side above the spar hole.	3378.0
19	Katsu AM-30 pneumatic crimper delivered from AIM Tools . It comes with a wide selection of jaw inserts, but lacks an airline supply hose. The supplied pair of hoses for connecting between the footswitch and the crimper are about 8mm OD and 5.6mm ID. Order from Advanced Fluid Solutions some 8mm OD hose and an 8mm hose socket with a 1/4" BSPP female end to fit one of my PCL connectors. Strip and crimp pins onto the inners of the ends of both of the cables supplied in the strobe kit. Slip 3 sizes of heatshrink over each cable then insert pins into shell: red, position 1; black, position 2; green, position 3. Shrink the sleeves in turn to taper from the shell to the cable. Forgot to label the cables before crimping on the pins, so slide the clear heatshrink sleeves on from the free ends and label the cables 236 and 237.	3379.1
22	Pneumatic hoses and adaptor delivered from Advanced Fluid Solutions .
23	Fit 8mm female hose adaptor to a PCL male connector with an O-ring for sealing. Assemble orange and clear hoses between pneumatic crimper & footswitch, and connect to compressor. However, it appears that either the instructions or the labelling are incorrect; with IN1 connected to IN1 and IN2 to IN2 the crimp jaws are closed and only open when the footswitch is depressed. Reversing the hose connexions makes it work in the expected way, with the jaws closing upon footswitch depression. Make a few test crimps. Try what appear to be the alternative jaw inserts for red, blue & yellow crimps, but the result is not so satisfactory - not looking quite as tight and a bit un-symmetrical, so change back to the original jaw inserts.
24	The wires from the starboard conduit junction down the edge of the seat to the wing root and seat pan should really have been drawn through a short length of the braided sleeving for tidiness and protection. Order some alternative stuff on eBay that can be fitted without access to the ends of the wires. Wonder about terminating the wires in the overhead panel now, but decide to leave it until I get the compass mount made. That would then allow a final(?) fit of the overhead panel. Look around aluminium stock for square tube that could be used for the compass mount. The length needs to be checked with the windscreen temporarily placed. Will need a dry day for that as quite a few bits need to come out of the trailer to get at the screen which is stored well forward in the nose of the trailer. Clear various stuff from port baggage well and vacuum it out. Climb in and check wire lengths needed for fuel pump (2 x 20AWG) and fuel flow sender (3 x 22AWG). 200mm behind D-bulkhead; 950mm in port baggage bay conduit; 1000mm in port cockpit conduit; 600mm across back of F14 Instrument Module; 700mm out to fuel system items on radio panel when laid flat - total 3450mm. Check that the short length of RG400 I used as a pull-through on the starboard side will push through the port conduit - very easy, no problem. Extend the steel tape on the floor; lay out and cut off 3.5m lengths of stock wire, 2 x 20AWG & 3 x 22AWG for wires 702, 704, 320, 321, & 322. Print out 2 copies of the labels for the above wires. Label each wire in turn, with a full label at the aft end and a short (number-only) label at the forward end, which will be trimmed to length when terminating. Check the gender of the connexions behind the D-bulkhead; the red wires on the pump and the fuel flow sender have male blades, all the others have female. Using the new pneumatic crimper, crimp red female blade connectors onto wires 322 & 702. Re-fit dies other way up in crimper jaws to make it easier to position the terminals in the hollow. It would almost be worthwhile having a stand for the crimper around waist height to make use more convenient. Crimp red male blades onto wire 320, 321 & 704.	3381.8
27	Add an extra layer of heatshrink over the labels at the forward ends of wires 320, 321, 322 702 & 704. Cut off about 70mm of adhesive lined heatshrink and slide the ends of the wires about 20mm into it, keeping the labels clear. Slide the RG400 into the other end and shrink it. Climb into baggage bay and push RG400 forwards through the port baggage bay conduit. Take the end out at the headrest and draw the wires all the way through. Mate the connectors and adjust the lengths behind the D-bulkhead to allow for cable clips. Push the RG400 forwards through the port cockpit conduit and draw wires through. Pull them up into the F14 Instrument Module through the port side bush and across to the radio panel aperture. Cut the heatshrink off the ends of the wires. Likewise pull the trim cable into and across the IM. Cut the supplied terminals off wires 345 (blue sleeve) and 346 (black sleeve) in the wiring harness supplied in the analogue fuel gauge kit, in preparation for drawing the wires through the conduit. Print wire labels for all the wires in area 300 that have not yet been terminated. Shrink labels onto wires 345 & 346. Drop them through the port bush of the IM. Attach them with duct tape to the forward end of the heavy nylon leader that was left in the port cockpit conduit and draw them aft through to the headrest. The hole I previously made in the headrest is too small so enlarge it with a 6mm hex bit in the IXO screwdriver. Insert a length of braided sleeving into the hole and slide the wires into it. Pull sleeve and wires into headrest. Trim sleeve to a suitable length. Crimp terminals onto the wires and connect them to the flying lead on the sensor. Pull the sleeve out and slide the end of it into the conduit. Pull the wires forward until slack taken up. Dress the wires inside the headrest; would be a good idea to have some sort of wire restraint at the outboard end of the headrest but not sure how permanent it should be. Push the folded end of the pitot-static tubing up into the port bush of the IM and draw it through. Abrade and degrease with acetone the 2 prepared clips and fuselage bonding areas for the starboard strobe cable. Mix a small batch of 90-second Araldite and apply it to the clips. Hold both clips in place on the cable with polyethylene sheet under wooden bridges. However, even after a count of 140, the epoxy is not really cured and clips start to pop off again when I ease the pressure. Hold again for about another minute and now it seems to have cured enough to hold.	3384.7
28	Cable tidies and split conduit delivered. Wrap a length of the 6mm spiral cable tidy onto the wires between the starboard conduit and the spar pin retainer, and trim to length. It would be good to retain it close to the fuselage side, so trim one tab off a 4mm composite cable clip to serve there. Unreel the 2 stock lengths of 3-core screened cable and choose the slightly shorter one for cable 234. Re-reel the other length. Strip, terminate, shrink sleeves, and label one end of the cable as previously done for cable 235 PSU end. Notice that the strobe cables are incorrectly identified on the wiring diagram with the FMP IDs rather than the cable labels so fix that and update the wirebook, local and website.	3385.7
29	Heatshrink a sleeve onto the screen of cable 234, leaving a bare end for contact. Crimp a 4mm red ring terminal onto it.	3385.8
31	Fit port strobe cable to PSU and attach screen to the upper aft fixing screw. Push the free end of the cable forward through the port baggage bay conduit and draw it right through.	3386.0

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