Europa #435 G-RODO Build Journal - 2023 12

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day	notes	hours
14	Tidy up garage stuff under fuselage. Roll fuselage out onto drive. Open trailer and take out trolley, blue foam box and starboard door for access. Take out lower cowl to drive. Remove port door from fuselage and take round to the back beside the trailer. On the fixing holes of the lower cowl, and some of those on the upper cowl that are not already marked or have Tinnerman washers already bonded, mark the outlines of the Tinnerman washers with felt-tip pen. With the power file, grind off the gel-coat within the marked areas to provide a bonding surface. The tip of one of the screws at the starboard front of the cowl was rather close to the fuel pump so it needs to be relocated. A mark was previously made on the joining face of the lower cowl for the new location. Drill out the rivets on the anchor nut and remove it. Fit the lower cowl; some effort and care needed to ensure all rubber seals are fitting in the correct way. Fixing screws are 3 short ones in upper holes and 3 longer ones in lower holes at each side. Fit top half of cowl. Again some effort needed to get the fixing holes aligned. Although I thought I had a full complement of screws and washers in the bag, need to get out some more of both to fill all fixing holes. The new washers will need to be abraded before they can be bonded onto the cowl. The hole in the front of the cowl, and the joining line, look a bit low on the propshaft. Try slackening off all the screws holding the cowl to the firewall and lifting the front of the cowl, but no significant improvement achieved. Get out the exhaust pipe and check how it fits. Looks as though the cowl has bulged out a bit, because the pipe is contacting the cowl when pushed fully home. As the hole will need to be enlarged somewhat anyway, angle the pipe more downwards (in accordance with advice from Mike Gregory) and mark the edge of the hole where relief is needed for that exit angle. Undo the upper cowl and extend the mark on the lower cowl for the new fixing hole down onto the area that will be visible when the cowl halves are joined. Re-fit upper cowl and mark new hole position on it. The cowl halves need to be held together for alignment while drilling. Drill very carefully with 2.4mm bit, applying minimal pressure, to ensure that the bit does not contact the fuel pump when it breaks through. With similar care enlarge the hole to 4.7mm. Remove the upper cowl. Countersink the hole in the lower cowl with a 10mm bit at very slow speed. Position a Tinnerman washer and mark around it. Grind off the gel-coat within the mark - which removes much of the countersink, but given the contour of this area that is not an issue. From the aft face, fit a temporary screw with a spacer, and thread the recovered anchor nut onto it on the forward face. Drill the rivet holes 2.5mm. Remove the anchor nut. Countersink the rivet holes with a 7mm drill bit hand-held. Fit the anchor nut on the aft face with a temporary screw and align the rivet holes. Insert and pull TAPK33BS rivets. With the power file, grind off a little more of the gel-coat around the balsa ring on the front of the cowl, to make a binding area for a fillet of filler. Mix a 40g + 16g batch of Araldite 420 (Redux) and add about 4 doses of flox to stiffen it. For each of the 6 screws on the port side of the lower cowl, remove the screw, check that the washer has been abraded, then drop it in a small bowl of acetone to degrease it. Degrease the bonding area on the cowl with acetone-soaked tissue and let it dry. With a narrow (split-down) mixing stick, apply Redux-flox to the bonding area. Dry the washer and place it in position on the Redux-flox pad. Dip the screw in grease, insert it and tighten. Fine rain starts to fall during this process but as it is quite light I feel I should continue. Place the upper cowl in position. Select all the available pre-abraded Tinnerman washers (8). Repeat the above process of degreasing, applying Redux and fitting a greased screw for the 3 places on the port side where the upper cowl attaches to the firewall, and the 5 places where the upper cowl attaches to the lower on the port side. Put the (by now rather damp) doors back into the trailer, with the trolley & foam storage box. Close up trailer ramp. Tidy up tools etc and roll fuselage back into garage. Put batch info on leftover Redux-flox - there was far too much, half of that would have been enough.	3777.1
15	Tin the ends of a pair of the Multipow 18650 Li-ion cells. Tin the ends of the straps on the battery pack, where they were originally welded to the cells. Referring to the photos taken during disassembly of the dead cells from the pack, solder the straps from the PCB onto the cells in the correct orientation. Likewise solder the jumper at the far end of the cells. Stick the spacer back on the end of the cells to separate them from the PCB and fold the PCB into position. Insert the assembly into the battery case and fit it into the Garmin GPSmap 296. Turn on the GPS and it fires up immediately, showing full battery charge. Leave it on the windowsill to update the clock, almanac and position. Put the dead Samsung cells in the battery recycling box. Position not found after about half an hour so move the GPS out into the back garden to give it a better view of the sky. Check it after an hour or so and it has a good fix (15ft uncertainty). Leave it running to see how the battery lasts. Forgot to check regularly and by bedtime it has shut down. Put it on charge overnight; the battery indicator starts from zero.
16	The GPSmap 296 is displaying a "Charge Complete" message, but the graphic shows only about 50% charged. Leave it running again to completely flat and put on charge again. Once more, it shows the same conflict between text and graphic after a few hours. Leave it connected to the charger to see if it changes over time. No apparent change in the graphic after a couple of hours. Take out the battery pack and check the voltages on the terminals: 7.49V outer, 8.16V centre. Put it back onto external power for the night. Consider replacing the cells in the Cameron Sino replacement battery pack with a pair of the new ones. Open that battery pack and with some difficulty prize the cells out of the case.
17	Take GPSmap 296 off external power and check battery voltages - pretty much the same as yesterday at 7.48V & 8.15V, so leave it disconnected from external power for now. The unsatisfactory graphic might arise from the different Amp-hour capacities of the original cells (2400mAh) and the new ones (3500mAh).
18	Remove the screws and Tinnerman washers from the lower cowl fixing holes on the starboard side and (which I should have done first!) insert the screws securing the upper and lower halves together. All the removed washers have already been abraded, so only the 4 for the remaining positions on the upper cowl need to be abraded. Start to abrade washers as previously done, spinning them with the power file on a screw held in the Mole grips, but mishandle the powerfile and the first one spins off into the undergrowth. While searching for it, discover that mice have made a nest and a toilet in the D-panel, which was left on the floor under some pieces of polyethylene film. Dump the shredded polyethylene in the bin. Abrade 4 Tinnerman washers with more care to keep them under control. Take the D-panel in to the utility room and give it a good clean with bleach. Once dried off, return it to the garage but store higher up this time.	3777.7

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