|
The Project in Chronological Order From Day One Year Six: 2014 |
January 1, 2014
A summary as I end my fifth full year of airplane building and start my sixth. I look at the RV-8 kit in my 'hangar' and see and airplane now. As I end this fifth year, I am working to attach the tail feathers and make most of the adjustment and wiring connections that will be finalized a few years down the road, but will be mostly completed now. 2013 has mostly been spent wiring and that entailed a bunch of planning to settle avionic decisions. Also, small tasks were completed, a process that will continue through the next year or two as the airplane is being readied to fly. The elephant in the room, as it were, is the big void forward of the firewall, one that may still be a year or two away from filling, maybe more. I am still set on installing a new or gently used IO-360-M1B fuel injected engine, so we shall see. That and a constant speed propeller. If my bank account were fuller, this airplane would be flying within a year, so that in itself is pretty cool. Not a bad way to start 2014 either.
January 2, 2014
An update here that really covers the minimal progress that occurred in December 2013, but here it is 2014 so there you go. I don't think anyone is really reading this so it won't much matter if I do a crossover on the years.
I completed the tail strobe/light mount that will be affixed to the bottom fiberglass rudder cap. I could have purchased something similar for less than $20 but what I fabricated is as good or better. This aluminum mount will be riveted to the fiberglass and the light fixture will then be screwed to the mount.
Over the past week or two I polished the vertical stabilizer and both elevators, so those were looking good. The intent here was for me to assemble the tail components and do some wiring, rigging, and adjusting. I'd like to get all this finalized as if I were to be flying the airplane sooner than later. It will all come apart once more and put into storage, but when I do the final assembly in a year or two, all these little tasks will be completed.
So, here is the tail being assembled on the fuselage.
And, here it is with the elevators and rudder mounted. I plan on wiring the tail light fixture with a connector, and also the electric trim with a connector. The elevators and rudders will be adjusted for proper distance from the stabilizers, and the elevator push tubes will be assembled in place and adjusted for flight. The bottom rudder cap will also need to be drilled and nut plates added to the rudder for the final assembly.
Once disassembled, the components will be stored but the fiberglass empennage tips will be set aside for painting (silver) and the rudder set aside for painting (red, white, and blue). All this work will take a month or two, depending upon how much time I can devote. After this work is done, back to the wings.
January 24, 2014
Progress continues on doing final fitting items on the empennage. Over the past weeks I did the following items:
Well, the first challenge is to wire the Suntail in as suggested by AeroLeds. Not difficult but I want to minimize or eliminate any interference with the comm radio audio so I read and followed. Essentially, I grounded the Suntail black wire to the fabricated mounting plate I installed earlier, and then grounded that to the airframe at the rib on the bottom of the rudder. (Not sure the Suntail case still needs to be grounded, theories vary and I never sought the final answer, but I did it anyways.) Then, I prepped the shielded wires coming from the front of the fuselage and connected the three wires (power for strobe, power for position light, and synchronizing wire) to the Suntail, and then, using the wire shielding as the ground return, grounded the shield (using a solder sleeve pigtail) to the same ground on the bottom rib of the rudder that I used for the case/Suntail ground. Some guys ground at the airframe in the tail section by running a ground wire forward but I decided, with pretty much no credible electrical experience to draw upon, that the three ‘rudder to vertical stabilizer’ metal attachments with three rod bearings and nuts and bolts and rivets all working together should provide an adequate ground connection with the rest of the airframe. I’d rather minimize the length of unshielded wire carrying any current to minimize audio interference.
But, when I powered it all up, I hit a snag. Actually, two snags. The position light worked when I turned on the strobe switch. When I turned on the position light switch nothing worked except that the fuse for the strobes blew. Repeatedly. Hmmm. So, I did a bit of initial troubleshooting and found nothing, then removed the floor panels to reveal the terminal block I had installed adjacent to the right rear seat footwell. The first problem was easily rectified as I had wired the strobes and position light power wires backwards. Corrected that problem so the position light turned on with the switch. The strobes also worked well, at least until I put the floor panel back in. Then the fuse blew again. Well, the answer became obvious that the floor panel was causing a short. I knew it was tight in there but when I took a closer look I determined that the problem was the little metal jumper connection that joined two adjacent sections of the terminal block was grounding against the side of the footwell.
Since these jumpers “jump” over the insulated separators of the terminal block, the raised metal jumper is exposed and grounded to the footwell when it was in position. Not good but not hard to fix either. The solution was to fabricate three little jumper wire connections to replace the metal jumpers. The jumper wires are well clear of any interference and the resulting wiring checked out fine. Strobes and/or position lights mounted on the rudder now work well and as advertised. My initial take on the AeroLeds is that they are an excellent aviation grade LED lighting system. As advertised and as I wanted. You get what you pay for, usually, and in this case, yes.
My next task will be to determine how to attach the bottom rudder fiberglass part to the rudder. I was going to add nutplates and screws but now think I will as per the plans and use pulled rivets. Couple reasons for this: Once assembled I should not need to get the bottom cover off; the bottom cover cannot be removed without removing the rudder because the tail wheel assembly does not allow sufficient clearance; and it will be a chore to partially remove the cover to disconnect the Suntail wiring, then remove the rudder, so it won’t be much more to drill out the pulled rivets. All that to say that once it is together I expect it will stay together. Pulled rivets it is, then.
After that is done, I plan to cut and fit the fiberglass fairing that covers the horizontal and vertical stabilizer joint area. Complete that fairing and prep it for paint so that when it all comes back together later, it will be straightforward to complete. Should be able to get to all this in the next few weeks.
I also ordered my seats from Classic Aero. I decided up the Sportsman style using the ultraleather material. I almost went genuine leather, but decided the ultraleather was a better option for me. Luke at Classic Aero was very helpful and I can expect to see these seats long about April.
February 7, 2014
I have been in Dallas this past week doing a bit of simulator refresher in the Lear 60, so have not been working on the airplane. Well, actually, I completed a CAD drawing of the electrical system, and that took a bit of time since I had to learn to work with Turbocad. The drawing turned out quite nicely. I need to do a final edit on it before posting it here, but it should work to continue to document the electrical system with CAD drawings.
As far as actual work on the airplane, last week I spent some time on the empennage fairings, both upper and lower. The upper is shown here in place:
It actually fits pretty well in my estimation. I need to correct two areas to make it lie flat, but other than that it won't take much to get it ready to be prepped for primer and eventual paint. I also drilled the attachment holes and will have to add nutplates to the horizontal and vertical stabilizers to hold this fairing in position.
For the lower fairing, I think I will just use the Vans-provided metal fairings. Some guys have had problems here but I think the provided ones will work fine. Each side of the fuselage has a small metal fairing with a rubber gap seal on the top that is screwed to holes already drilled in the fuselage. These holes need to be tapped for #6 screws, something I will do in my next session.
I've been scratching my head a bit over one of the great RV-8 dilemmas: where to mount the ELT antenna. For those unfamiliar, the ELT is the Emergency Locator Transmitter required by the FAA to help locate a downed aircraft. It transmits a signal used by search and rescue and greatly aids in locating a missing aircraft. For the RV-8, the problem basically is that there is very little suitable surface on the aft fuselage to mount the ELT antenna as specified by the installation instructions of most ELT makers, primarily due to the sliding RV-8 canopy. Builders basically have these choices: bury it beneath the empennage fairing with it mounted horizontally; mount it on the fuselage forward of the windscreen; mount it on a wingtip; mount it on the tip of the vertical stabilizer; mount it on the lower aft fuselage; mount it in cockpit under the canopy but out of the way of the pilot or passenger; or, fit it in the tiny amount of real estate available between the empennage and the canopy when it is open. None of these options are ideal and none meet the installations instructions 100%. For me, I had decided early on to use the ACK E-04 121.5/406 mhz ELT. The 121.5/406 mhz antenna is longer and limits choices a bit because it will not fit under the empennage fairing. I am not fond of mounting it on the wing tip or the vertical stabilizer tip (vulnerable) or on the forward fuselage or lower fuselage, so it pretty much leaves me with the aft fuselage between the canopy and empennage fairing. It won't be real pretty, which is why it is avoided. But, it will be functional and, for me, comes closest to meet the installation requirements put out by ACK for the unit.
As part of this process, I mocked up the ACK 121.5/406 mhz antenna just to get a feel of where I might be able to mount it, and it helped me verify the decision I had pretty much already made. Costly components to construct the mock-up: two coat hangers.
Because I need to get this antenna mount finalized, probably on a doubler plate, I went ahead and ordered the ELT. I should be able to complete the installation in the next few sessions and move on to the next thing. After the antenna mount is installed, I can do a bit of final riveting on the little bulkhead between the horizontal stabilizer and the fuselage. Okay then.
February 18, 2014
I fear I have crossed over to the dark side in the placement of my ELT antenna, installing it, of all places, not only in the slipstream but also in accordance with the manufacturer's requirements. I have fallen into the clearly obvious FAA electromagnetic conspiracy of having ELT antennas mounted where they might work. Oh, well, that is homebuilding.
So, for this ACK 121.5/406 mhz antenna, I decided a doubler plate was required and fabricated said doubler, and attached said doubler with rivets.
And here is the antenna mounted from the outside.
And here is the antenna mounted from the inside.
On to other items, in this case tapping for the attachment screws to hold the lower empennage fairings into place.
And, for the upper empennage fairing, I did a bit of fiberglass work to allow the fairing to fit better against the horizontal stabilizer. It was a bit wavy but after applying some glass and cloth to the mating surface, it should work just fine with sanding and final prep work.
Also seen here is that offensive ELT mounted there mocking me.
In my idle moments, I also fitted the mounting straps for the ACK E-04 ELT on the mounting plate. The connections for the ELT in the aft fuselage are already wired. This mounting plate will also hold the Dynon transponder later.
And that's it for now.
I've spent the past few weeks working on finishing up the odds and ends of the empennage and aft fuselage. This included doing the empennage fairings, completing the wiring on the elevator electric trim, and doing a control rigging of the elevator and rudder. However, in the midst of all of this, Van's released two service bulletins, SB 14-01-31 and SB 14-02-05. The first one is for a spar doubler for the horizontal stabilizer, and the second adds some reinforcement to the elevator rod-end bearing attachment points. The latter one is not applicable to me because the airplane is not yet flying and applies only if cracking is found during inspections.
However, SB 14-01-31 is applicable as it adds two doubler plates to the middle section of the horizontal stabilizer front spar to prevent cracking of the spar web, or to prevent any cracks that might form from becoming a structural problem. To complete the service bulletin, the inner ribs, front and back, need to be removed as do the spar reinforcing angle and spar splice angle. The spar web has some notches added to stop any cracks, the spar flanges are trimmed, and then new doubler plates are fitted and riveted into position.
This service bulletin caused a bunch of consternation on the VAF forum site, but in the end the application is straightforward, especially if the instructions are followed (see below). The actual completion of the service bulletin is somewhat optional if an airplane is not yet flying, but Van's recommends it be completed on all applicable models, so I decided to go ahead and get it done.
Re-constructed a stand to hold the horizontal stabilizer. Had one years ago but it is gone.
There are a whole bunch of rivets, both skin to rib and spar angles to spar web, that need to be drilled out to start the process. The technique I used was to use a #40 drill and go into the top of the rivet far enough to follow with a punch that, with some leverage, will pop the top of the rivet off. Then, I used a spring-loaded punch backed by a bucking bar to drive the tail of the rivet out. Works great about 95% of the time. That other 5% can be a bugger, though. In any event, I drilled out all the required rivets over two sessions of about an hour each. Damaged one or two holes in the process but not show stoppers by any means. I can find other ways to damage the holes, anyways (see below).
Next, I added four notches, two top and two bottom, in the spar web where the two inboard ribs meet the spar web. This is where the cracks were developing and, from what I can tell, the original RV-7 instructions specified that these notches be added but nothing is mentioned about them in the original RV-8 instructions. A close look at the original plan drawings for the spar show the notches but nowhere in the plans does it instruct a builder to add them. (The drawings are the same for the RV-7 and RV-8 as the parts are common.) So, the service bulletin instructs to look for the notches and if they are not present, to add them. I added them. For a flying airplane, if cracks are found and you are lucky, filing material away to create the notches can also remove small cracks. I guess the notches are a stress relief thing but I did not feel much stress relief when I filed out the four notches in the tight working area.
Next, the upper and lower inboard flanges on the front spar are trimmed at an angle, also a stress relief thing. To do this, Van's supplies a small piece of stainless steel in the SB Kit ($15 plus $5 shipping from your nearest Van's mailbox) that is inserted between the skin and offending spar flange to reduce the chance of damaging the skin when Dremel trimming. To improved access, I removed the four inboard skin to spar flange rivets on top and bottom, both sides, to further push the skin away from the flange, and this seemed to help. All four flange trims were accomplished with a bit of time but little problem. This, then, completed the front spar preparatory work.
So, the two doublers are then prepped and fitted into position. The Van's instructions are specific on drilling for the rivets, so I dutifully followed along. A 90-degree angle drill makes all the difference and was working just fine. But, alas, I had read on a VAF posting about a technique of drilling the four outboard holes on the doublers (into the reinforcing angle and the splice angle) in assembly on the workbench instead of trying to drill it inside the horizontal stabilizer. Okay, I thought, that makes sense, and used that technique. Fitted it back together on my workbench, clecoed securely, and drilled away.
Well, this technique did not work for me. I have yet to figure out why it did not, but though the existing holes in the angles were used to match drill the doublers, when I reassembled the thing on the spar web, I had serious misalignment issues not only with several of the four outboard holes on each one but also several of the other holes on the angles. I tried all sorts of combinations of how I could have misaligned them and studied photos I took of the process, but cannot figure it out. Everything lines up on my workbench but not when attached to the spar. Scratch my head and curse my deviation from the instructions because, as it turned out later, drilling in assembly inside the horizontal stabilizer was a non-event. Instead, I made the whole thing three times harder, more complicated, and with not as good a result. All from my thinking "that sounds like a good idea." Not that there are not good ideas out there, but this one did not work for me. Your results may vary. I hope so.
So, I was left at staring at two doublers with holes that did not line up. Plus a few holes on the spar that were slightly misaligned from their corresponding holes on the reinforcing and splice angles. I was going to order another SB kit ($15 plus $5 shipping from your nearest Van's mailbox) but decided, instead, to try fabricating the two doublers myself from some 0.064 scrap aluminum (same as the originals). An hour or two later I had two exact duplicates of the doublers in my hand. Turned out quite well in my opinion, but that's just me.
I match drilled one hole from the old doubler to the new one, then clecoed it into position. I then laboriously redrilled all the matching holes from the angle and spar side into the doubler, and then did this again for the other doubler. It worked out just fine but I was a bit apprehensive at removing the freshly drilled doublers from the spar to deburr and clean everything up, because I knew I was going to have a few holes that were "ovalized" from the earlier misaligned drilling. And I did have a few, but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Not very pretty, as it should have been, and still a mystery in my mind as to why the misalignment occurred in the first place.
So, after doing the final prep work on the doublers, I riveted them into place. A few of these rivets can be squeezed, but most are bucked. Not real difficult as access on the center rivets is easy, and even the rivets on the inside of the wings are pretty easy with the offset rivet set. The norm is to have the manufactured head of the rivet on the thinner material if possible, and this works for most of the rivets but a few I had to set the other way due to the space available for the rivet gun. Nonetheless, straightforward riveting. I over drove a few; out of practice, I guess.
Then, I prepared the two angles that are used to attach the main ribs to the spar, to replace the original flanges removed to make room for the doublers. I neglected to take photos of this part, but the angles are riveted to the old main ribs, and then that assembly is riveted back to the spars. Then, the main ribs and nose ribs are riveted back to the skins. I added the five nutplates (per side) that will later accept the screws holding the empennage fairing into position.
By the way, for those looking for advice, expect to use two MK-1000-6 miniature nutplates and two K-2000-6 single lug nutplates to fit on the rib flanges, besides the six standard K-1000-6 nutplates. This is due to reduced space on the rib flanges on the forward and aft ends of the horizontal stabilizer. The plans make no mention of the different nutplates needed (nor are they provided) but I don't see how one could do it with the standard nutplates. It makes more sense when you look at the parts when assembling. Plan to have some of these specialized nutplates on hand anyways.
So, after all was riveted back together, I put one last little coat of primer on to make everything nice and pretty. Looks good to me. Definitely looks beefier with all those rivets.
And, here is the horizontal stabilizer done and ready to go back into storage.
As far as I am concerned, all is done aft of the rear fuselage bulkhead as far as the empennage goes, save some painting. Once the time comes, I should be able to bolt these parts back on the fuselage, and then hook up and rig the controls. Then go fly. Well, maybe more than that.
Along the way, I riveted the aft fuselage bulkhead, officially known as F-810-A, into position. I had left this open to allow access into the area where the ELT antenna was mounted, and also to finalize some of the aft fuselage wiring. This worked out very nicely and I'm glad I waited.
And, in the midst of working on the horizontal stabilizer service bulletin, my set of seats showed up from Classic Aero. A few weeks early, but that's okay by me. Here is the front seat placed into position.
And the rear seat. Pretty conventional colors but that's okay because I'm pretty conventional. Some might say boring, but that's just their opinion.
This material is the synthetic leather. I toyed about real leather vs. the synthetic and decided for the synthetic based on a few user reviews. I also ordered and received the matching leather stick grips, forward and aft. Not installed yet but I have them.
So, I just had to sit in the airplane. Actually, I had to. I wanted to see how much room I really would have because you can't really know until the cushions are in.
Definitely tighter with the cushions. I have adequate headroom but won't have a lot to spare, and with a headset I will have to be careful with the canopy to avoid scratches. Definitely won't need the little supplemental cushion that Classic Aero provides with the seats. Leg room is also adequate but about what I expected. All closed up, it sure felt nice to get a good idea of what it will feel like to fly this RV-8. The closer I get the more charged up I get about my airplane. Just little warm and fuzzies when I walk by it on my way to somewhere else.
April 3, 2014
Moving back to the wings after spending so much time on the fuselage, the first task I am working on is the fiberglass wingtips. I need to set up how the tips will be attached to the wings, do the fiberglass preparatory work for priming and eventual painting, and install the AeroLED wing tip light/strobes. Also, the clear plastic cover of the tip lights needs to be cut down, prepped, and installed.
So, to start, the standard Vans wing tip attachment method is nutplates top and bottom riveted to the fiberglass, and then the tips are held on with #6 screws. An alternative is to permanently install the tips using pulled rivets. For most builders, I think they would rather have the ability to remove the tips, and that includes me too, so the pulled rivets are out.
I have read about a technique to use piano hinges mounted to attach the tips, which appealed to me for a couple of reasons. First, I think it might look better because potential bowing or puckering of the fiberglass where it attaches with the nutplates is eliminated. Also, properly installed, the piano hinge method makes removing the tip much quicker and easier than removing forty or more #6 screws. So, in looking around, I found a very good explanation posted right here by Mike Bullock, so I took a close look at how he did it and decided to follow his advice. I ordered four piano hinges from Aircraft Spruce, two narrow and two wide ones. They will be mixed and matched so each attachment hinge will consist of a narrow and a wide piece, which moves the hinge line outboard and hides it from view.
To start, the existing tip flanges, where they are designed to fit under the aluminum skin at the end of the wings, is trimmed to be even and fit properly. Then, the existing pre-punched holes are used to drill with a #40 drill into the flanges, and then new holes are added between each of the existing pre-punched holes to double the number of future rivet attach points.
Then, a wide hinge piece is cut to length to fit in the wingtip, and then it is back drilled to the flange that was drilled to match the wing in the prior step.
Then, a narrow hinge piece is cut to length and attached to the wide piece in the wing tip, and matching holes are measured to allow the narrow hinge piece to be backdrilled to the wing tip.
Here is the result: the narrow and wide hinges drilled to the wingtip.
Then, here is the neat trick. The hinges are removed, and the flange is cut from the wingtip using a Dremel tool. The separated flange is then used as a spacer when the wide hinge is riveted to the wing section. Since these were all drilled in assembly on the wing tip, when the wide hinge is riveted to the wing section and the narrow section is riveted to the wing tip, the wing tip is attached using the hinge pin and the hinge joint is outboard of the wing-wing tip joint, thus hidden from view. It sounds more complicated that it is.
Here is the wing tip with the two hinges clecoed into place and the hinge pin installed. Worked like a charm. I had hoped to finish this whole thing during the last session but ran out of time. My next session will involve countersinking the ex-flange spacer to match the dimpled holes in the wing section, then riveting the wide hinge to the wing. The wing tip will have its holes countersunk also and the narrow hinge will eventually be expoxied and then riveted to the wing tip. Then, the last step will be to prepare the mini-rib at goes on the aft end of the wing tip and provide for a way to secure the two piano hinge pins on that mini rib. Next time I should have some details of that.
After that, I will start fiberglass prep work, and also work to install the AeroLED tip lights. Hope to move through these tips fast enough and then get to polishing the ailerons, flaps, and wing itself. After that is complete, it will be time to attach the wings for the first time and prepare for drilling those all-important holes in the aft wing spar. Coming soon, I hope.
May 6, 2014
I continued working on the wingtips and how they will attach to the wings. I am using hinges, and that fabrication is completed. I epoxied and then riveted the four hinges to the top and bottom of each wingtip.
With the hinges added, the ribs that are added to the aft end of each tip were too long and would interfere with the hinges, so I had to cut them shorter. Here is the rib after trimming but before being bent.
And the rib in place and ready for riveting.
I used short hinge sections drilled to match nut plates attached to each rib to secure the hinge pins that hold the wing tips on. Here are those fabricated with hinge pins inserted for test fitting.
Then, on to complete the attachments for the navigation/strobe lights. I final trimmed and fitted the aluminum inserts that will be polished and expoxied into position, and also drilled and fitted the mounting plates for the AeroLed lights.
The nav light fixture slides onto the mounting plate that is mounted to the wingtip, and is held in place with a set screw. The wiring goes through the plate and tip to attach to the wiring in the wing.
Here is the fixture being test fitted. The blue plastic will be removed and the aluminum plates polished when I am closer to finishing the assembly.
I completed the wiring in the wing for both ends of the wires...the ones coming from the navigation light and the ones coming from the wing. These are shielded wires. As per AeroLed instructions, I will being using the shield itself as the ground return for the lights to minimize audio noise interference. Molex connectors are used for the actual connection.
I'm to the point where I want to do a bit more painting so I used Randolph two part epoxy primer to prime the rudder and the wing tips and the other fiberglass parts that I have completed. Here is the rudder, which soon enough will be painted overall Ranthane white, with red and blue trim to be added later.
And, here are the other fiberglass parts ready for prime time.
In the next weeks I hope to do this painting and then get serous about polishing the flaps, ailerons, and wings.
And, then on Easter Sunday, I had the opportunity to show off the airplane a bit to family. Here is the cutest kid in the world sitting on Uncle Lucas' lap in the front seat. Maybe the grandson will go fly with me someday.
And two future pilots, that would be Lucas in the front seat and Mathias in the rear one. Too cool for school.... Clear prop!
I continued to work on polishing the wings, painting some fiberglass parts, and painting the rudder.
My eventual scheme to be worn by my RV-8 is intended to be 1940-era U.S. Army Air Corps markings that will basically consist of polished aluminum and the distinctive rudder stripes. As for the rudder, over the span of two weeks I painted the rudder overall white, then added the red and, later, the blue trim. I used Ranthane polyurethane for the paint. I am not entirely satisfied with my results, though it is not the paint's fault. I am not a very good painter despite my best efforts. It is frustrating to say the least. There is a measured technique needed that takes practice, and I am not there yet.
Nonetheless, after the white base paint had cured, I masked off the rudder for the red paint, using the original Army specifications for the width and proportions. Here is the rudder in my paint preparation and masking room.
And, after all was said and done, here is the finished rudder. Looks great from a distance, not so good for those picky details, but is is acceptable and I think it will be distinctive on the airplane. The top tip is mounted and screwed on here, while the bottom fiberglass piece is clecoed on, later to be riveted using pulled rivets once the rudder is final installed on the vertical stabilizer.
I will mention here as an aside the silver paint I applied to the fiberglass parts, largely consisting of th wingtips but also several fairing parts. This was also Ranthane and proved much more problematic than the white, red, and blue paint. Metallic paint when applied by an amateur does one or more of several things, or all at the same time: if you apply it too thin and/or dry, it develops a texture; if you apply it too wet, the paint does not sag but the color does, so you get a mottled look; if you apply it too thick, it does run and sag. The sweet spot in the middle eluded me and I finally had to admit defeat. After spending a week or more in application and then attempts to salvage, I sanded off the top layer, did a final run of fine sanding, and then took the parts to a local Lincoln auto body shop for them to spray. I have yet to see the results but expect a whole lot better than what I was able to achieve, A bit more $$$ here but less than what I wasted on time and materials to get to that unfortunate point. Your experience may vary; I hope so.
Otherwise, I have been polishing the lower surfaces of the wings on occasion. Busy with other stuff and working out of town, but making a bit of progress here.
I think in the end I will mount the wings after I do the two lower surfaces, and polish the upper surfaces when the wings are fitted into position. Might work out better and access will be easier.
It has been six weeks since I updated these pages. I've been busy so spare time has gone toward working on the airplane and not updating these pages. But, I am on the verge of mounting the wings for the first time so I thought I would document progress over the past few weeks before crossing that bridge.
First off, the wiring for the AeroLeds wing tip strobes/nav lights was completed, with the whole assembly ready to go on the airplane.
As noted earlier, I had the wing tips painted by Lincoln Auto Body and I must say they turned out much better than anything I did or could have done. Not sure why my painting is so marginal but I suspect skill has something to do with it. Anyways, turned out to my satisfaction.
Here is the pair of them. I added the polished aluminum reflector behind the lights because I like the look and was pretty easy to do.
I followed the AeroLeds instructions on wiring the lights. A close look reveals that the grounding wire from the light assembly is attached to a ground plate to which the lights are mounted. Not entirely sure this step is still needed as the light design has been updated, I think. In any event, it was simple enough to do so I did it. Then, that grounding plate is grounded to a grounding lug on the end of the wing, to which is also grounded the wire shield for the wires that are coming from the switch/power source in the fuselage. The molex connector makes the assembly easier. Done as far as I am concerned, or at least until I have a) power to the lights to see if they work properly and, if so, b) a radio system installed to see if there is any interference from the lights.
So, on to the process of attaching the wings for the first time. I fabricated, as per the instructions, a pair of flap push rods. Straightforward; the ends of the specified tubes are tapped to accept the rod end bearings.
I fabricated, as per the plans, the attach brackets for the matching brackets that join the fuel tanks to the fuselage. These are cut out of a hunk of aluminum angle to the size specified in the plans. They will soon enough be clamped to the fuel tank brackets and drilled for attachment to the fuselage structure. More on this later in the process.
In preparation for drilling that all important rear spar bolt hole, I prepared a drill guide with three hole sizes: 0.2500 inch, 0.3020 inch, and 0.3125 inch. I will start with a pilot hole sized to a #30 drill bit, and then progressively drill out the bolt hole, ending with an undersized 0.3115 reamer for the 5/16 (0.3125) inch AN5 bolts. (I purchased the 5/16 undersized reamer from Avery Tools.) That's the plan, anyways. We shall see.
And, along those same lines, here are the four drift pins I fabricated from 7/16 bolts purchased at Lowes. As per Van's supplemental drilling guide for the rear spar, I will use two drift pins on each wing front spar to hold it in position while the wing is temporarily attached for drilling and other fitting items.
And here I have marked out the rear spar stub coming from the fuselage to show the area available to allow the requisite 5/8 inch edge distance for the bolt hole. I have done the same on the spar stub coming from the wing. More on this process later also.
After all this, I have arranged for my No Ding Wing-Ding event on Saturday, July 12. It will be a party, of sorts, in which I have invited my three sons and their significants for a wing joining and summer afternoon barbeque. I figure it will be either 30 minutes of quick work or many hours of agonizing frustration. Not much between the two, frankly. My big concern is that the front spar stubs will not very easily fit into the fuselage openings. My measuring attempts indicate it will be a very tight fit. More later.
July 22, 2014
So, the last ten days produced a flurry of airplane building activity. As planned, I had a No Ding Wing-Ding on Saturday, July 12. This was basically an opportunity to gather some family help in the name of my three sons and get the wings fitted, and then have a barbeque lunch with the associated gang.
I started the morning by rearranging the garage, err, hangar. I had determined long ago that the wings would fit on the fuselage with room to spare if I angled it across the garage. So, I repositioned it and roughly leveled the fuselage.
Then, I planned how we were going to move the wings from the wing cradle to the fuselage. I had already prepped the spar stubs with lubrication...initially Boelube but later just some oil rubbed onto the two parts of the spar. I had also fabricated the four 7/16 inch drift pins to be used to temporarily secure the main spars.
I expected the job to either go quickly or quickly deteriorate into major problems, as the big question in my mind was how the spars would fit into fuselage openings that were several thousandths of an inch too narrow. Does not sound like much, but these things are solid aluminum and don't really compress a whole lot.
Well, I am happy to say that it went quickly in a good way. With myself and four wing man handlers, we were able to move the wings into position and with not a whole lot of effort, was able to slide the wing spars into the fuselage. It was a bit awkward to drive the two pins home into each spar, but I had also lubed each pin which helped.
So, both wings were mounted within thirty minutes or so. Time for a required self-congratulatory photo showing, from left, Adam, Mathias, airplane builder holding grandson Arlo, Nathan, and Lucas. Cool job, dudes. On to hamburgers, but that RV-8 looked pretty good with wings.
You would have thought I would have gotten a better photo of just the airplane at this point but, I guess not. Maybe hungry.
Well, I tinkered a bit the following day, leveling the fuselage and getting ready to square the wings, level the wings, and drill the aft spar. As per Van's instructions, I used four plumb bobs strung across the leading edge of the wing, one on each tip and one on each inner section. Theoretically, they should all line up. I had some interference from the landing gear and squared off the rear of the wing, then rechecked the front. After I did square it up, the landing gear was resting just forward of my reference string taped to the garage floor. The wings were squared. I also measured from the same place on each tip to a reference point on the aft fuselage. Good within an eighth of an inch. For good measure, did the same to the front of the fuselage.
Then, it came to leveling the wings and setting the incidence. I used the Van's specified 2 51/64 inch (hard wood) block attached to my 48-inch Harbor Freight level and also used my digital level to confuse things a bit. I fiddled with for a couple of hours, measuring different points along each wing until I was satisfied the mean angle of the wing was zero when my Van's spacer block was installed. You could make a career out of fiddling with the wing incidence. I eventually got to a point of frustration and just made a big step back and took a break.
Came back later and did a quick sanity check to make sure the obvious as well as the precise things were set up properly. Then, all that was left to drill the two holes, one on each wing. Basically, I had already read all that I could about drilling these two important holes: edge distance, pilot holes, reamers, drill guides, etc. etc. I had digested it all and worried enough for good measure. When it came time, I used my assembled gear and drilled the two holes and they turned out just fine. After the final run through with my undersized reamer, the two AN5 bolts slid straight and square into the holes with just a bit of pressure. Do the homework, assemble what you need, take a deep breath, and drill away.
Here are the assembled tools. The center punch to precisely locate the hold (the most important part of the process), a #30 drill for the pilot hole, a 1/4-inch drill to make it larger (using the drill guide), the N size drill to make that one larger (using the drill guide), then the 0.3115 reamer to finish the hole off, also using the drill guide.
And here is one of the bolts installed; after so much thought and time and worry, now just move on to the next thing.
The next thing was the forward attach point for the fuel tank. I had already made the brackets so now they were clamped to the fuel tank bracket to properly position for the pre-drilled holes on the side of the fuselage.
The first trick here is to make sure the top of the bracket does not extend above where the wing fairing will rest over the opening between wing and fuselage, yet leave sufficient edge distance for the drilled hole.
The second trick here is to try and figure out how in the world the instructions can be followed. They are simple enough: once the bracket is positioned, match drill the fuselage holes into the bracket to accept the AN3 bolts. Except there is no way to drill the top holes from inside the fuselage due to the angle of the hole and already installed parts in the fuselage. The bottom holes are doable with a 12-inch long drill, but the top holes...I do not see how they could be drilled from the inside. So, I was left to trying to figure out how to precisely mark the location of the holes (one on each bracket) so I could drill them from the front. I used a punch and marked them from the matching holes inside the fuselage with a bolt installed in the already-drilled lower holes, and took some precise measurements to verify my hole placement. As it turned out, I marked quite accurately. It's a good thing it did as I would have had to redo the part(s) if it did not. I confess I grew weary of continual little challenges last week, but that is part of the process. Anyways, hole drilled and brackets mounted.
From there, it was straightforward to drill the 1/4-inch hole through the fuel tank bracket to the fuselage bracket. Later, the fuselage bracket hole will be turned into a 1/4-inch diameter slot that the fuel tank bracket bolt could slide through. The idea is that, in the event of an accident that pulls the wings from the fuselage, the side of the fuel tank will not be ripped open when the wing leaves. Instead, the fuel tank bracket will 'slide' out of the fuselage bracket and all will be well. Well, I hope I never have the occasion to test this system.
Also completed at this time while working in this area is the short fuel line that connects the vent line from the wing to the vent line in the fuselage. Once I got away from trying to needlessly use 5052 aluminum tubing for this short line, the process was quick enough. Fabricated both lines, one for each wing.
Then, on to attaching and rigging the ailerons. I had already set neutral ailerons when I did the wing tips so the process was straightforward. I adjusted the length of the aileron push rods to set the control sticks to neutral when the ailerons were set to neutral.
Not pictured here, but I then attached the flaps and rigged the flaps up to the flap push rods and rigged them also. The flaps moved up and down with the electric motor. Cool. The flaps fit pretty well at this point and I trimmed, as per the instructions, the inner and lower flap surface to fit flush against the lower center fuselage.
Then, it was on to doing the drilling preparation work for the wing fairings. These are basically two strips of aluminum that extend from the aft top of the wing at the flaps and move forward to wrap around the leading edge and end up on the bottom of the wing by the front spar. Straightforward to drill and trim.
Then, I did the prep work and drilling for the flap fairings that attach to the fuselage. These have to be formed a bit to make them fit properly, and then they are drilled into position of the fuselage, partly from the fuselage inside outward into the fairing using holes left open during the fuselage riveting, and part from match drilling from holes in the fairing into the fuselage. These two fairings will soon be permanently riveted to the fuselage.
Here are the wing and flap fairing temporarily fitted. After all that, they are ready to be removed once again.
I started pulling things off the wings in preparation for polishing the upper surfaces and, ultimately, removing the wings as part of the process of finishing the airplane. I decided to double check my neutral ailerons before I pulled the ailerons off. They were set properly; no further adjustments needed as far as I can tell.
I eyed this little discrepancy while working with the ailerons. No doubt the aft end of my right flap and aileron don't line up quite as nicely as they should. They used to, or so I thought. I am not going to sweat this a bit. It adds more character.
This is closer to what is should have looked like, this being my left aileron and flap alignment.
And, so, then, on to polish the upper wing surfaces using Nuvite. Spent part of one afternoon and part of one morning doing this work. I wanted to polish the whole airplane once over during assembly, and then will go back and do it again sometime around the first flight, once it is finally assembled. This makes sense to me, so that is what I am doing.
I will add a bit of advice to anyone reading this who might be contemplating building an RV-8. In my first months of my project I was convinced that I should follow along behind others with this blue plastic stuff that covers all the aluminum parts that are delivered in the kits. It is an apparently common practice to, carefully using a soldering gun, trim away the blue plastic along the rivet lines, leaving the blue plastic on most of the aluminum to 'protect' it while allowing the riveting to proceed. Well, from my experience, it was a big waste of time and, in fact, caused more damage because my 'carefully' using the soldering gun actually put very nice scratches in the aluminum that are deep enough that they will not come out. Basically, if I painted the airplane I need not have done this process because paint would ultimately cover the aluminum, and if I polished the airplane (which I ended up doing), the scratches are a bigger problem than the minor blemishes found on unprotected aluminum skin. If I were to do it again, I'd just pull all the blue plastic off the aluminum right off the bat and then happily build away.
These very nicely laid out and straight scratches irritate me because I thought I was careful. But, the end result after polishing looks pretty good (no where near perfect) and meets my operational standard. This airplane will fly and will occasionally get dirty and un-shiny.
Speaking of doing really stupid things, I averted a major catastrophe by dumb luck. I had arranged for my son Adam to help me pull the wings off and put them back in the wing cradle. Before he came, I tried to figure out the best way to get the four wing drift pins out. (More on that in a moment.) In the process of doing this, I was able to pull a pin out, thinking the wing was going to stay where it was with just one pin holding it. My minimal geometry and physics training failed me this day, as when the pin came out, the wing pivoted around the other pin. Fortunately, it was the top pin that I pulled, and the wing pivoted downward around the bottom pin, the wing tip dropping a good foot. My heart sank a whole bunch more than the wing tip when it dropped. I envisioned damaged and expensive parts. I scurried around and found a tire and my sawhorse and propped the wing back up where it was supposed to be. With great relief I found no damage to anything. The same thing would have happened if it was bottom pin I had pulled, but I suspect the wing would have pivoted further and probably caused some damage. Needless to say, I stopped pulling pins until my son was there to hold the wing steady. I can be pretty stupid if I want too, I guess.
Back to the pins: when I drove them in, I didn't go all the way but left the bolt head an inch or so above the surface. I tried driving the pins out but that proved awkward and potentially damaging to the holes (that stupid thing again). What I found worked was to use a crow bar and a variety of wood blocks and bucking bars to make the angles work, and just leverage the pins out using the bolt head to push against.
So, I think I spent about 40 hours over three or four days doing all this work, including one Sacramento valley July day where the OAT was 109 degrees and it may have been at least 10 degrees hotter in the 'hangar.' Worth it, though, to make a bunch of progress in a short time.
Next: finish the wing fairings up (need to add a bunch of nut plates to the wings) and a few other left over tasks from this past week. Then, install the engine mount and then start working on wheels, tires, and brakes. Then wheel fairings. Keep on moving.
August 28, 2014
A long overdue update. Just to catch things up over the past month, I have made quite a bit of progress moving forward towards finishing the airframe part of the RV-8 construction.
One thing I did to finish up the wing attachment process was to cut slots into the T-405 fuel tank bracket. Basically used a 1/4-inch drill and then a hacksaw to open up the slot. This part marries against the fuel tank bracket attached to the fuselage and the slot, in theory, allows a clean break-away of the tank in a situation of, uh, rapid deceleration. Okay, then. I had to prop the wing up in the wing stand to make the cut, something that worked out just fine.
Another, closer, view of the slot.
Here is the flap fairing prepped and ready for riveting. Awaiting a second set of hands to do the riveting.
I cut and then finished the fuel line attach fittings on both sides. They are now ready to be attached to the wing lines during the final assembly.
On to the firewall and attaching the engine mount. The engine mount matched up pretty well with the four holes on the firewall. I basically had to just drill out the hole a bit undersized, and then used a 3/8" reamer to complete the holes for the bolts. I was a bit unhappy with the squareness of one of the holes; I had not perfected my use of a drill guide for this process at that point, but it turned out okay after the assembly was completed. All four bolts are now permanently installed with castle nuts and cotter pins.
A view of the fuselage with the engine mount permanently attached. Cool.
Moving right along, and on to the landing gear for the axles, wheels, tires, and brakes. I jacked up the fuselage using my engine hoist attached to the engine mount, then leveled the longerons, and started in on the landing gear. After I temporarily installed the axles, I verified the toe in/out of the gear legs as per the instructions and it was pretty much dead on at zero, which is where Van's says it should be.
I then set up the axles with the U-808 mounting plate. I packed the two sets of wheel bearings with the appropriate grease and fitted the wheels to the axles. I tightened down the axle nut to remove all the play from the wheels. The technique is different from what the instructions provide because my kit came with Matco wheels and brakes vs. the Cleveland brakes that the instructions refer to. The bearings have an integral seal so they are tightened differently, but the Matco wheels came with good instructions, so I just followed them.
After all was set up, I drilled the hole in the axle nut for the cotter pin. Done and done.
After that, it was time to attach the brake assemblies. Just followed the instructions. I've done brakes on cars for decades so this was pretty straightforward. It's a clean assembly and looks good to me.
Except for this. I encountered interference between the U-807 gear pant bracket with the top caliper bolt of the disk brake assembly. It does not interfere directly with the brake action, but will make it impossible to remove the brake pads in the future without taking apart the whole assembly. The U-807 bracket was set up for the Cleveland brakes, so a bit of a modification was required.
And here it is. The area in blue at the center of the photo needs to be removed to allow the pad assembly to come off the brake caliper. Some filing and finish work took care of that.
I then learned how to mount tires onto a split wheel assembly. Read the instructions and some other web accounts. Purchased some Tire Talc on Amazon, then pushed on forward. I put the inner tube into the tire and aligned it with the red mark on the wheel. I then partially inflated the tube in the tire without the wheel assembly inserted. This seemed to set the tube into the tire without any wrinkling or twisting. I then deflated the tire and assembled the two wheel halves and brake disk together, and bolted it together. Torqued to the specified 100 inch-pounds. I then slightly inflated the tire several times to make sure the tube was really set, then inflated the tire to 40 pounds a side. That seems to be the consensus tire pressure. Did all this twice. Two wheels and two tires mounted in place.
Still moving right along, I started working on the landing gear leg fairings and the wheel pants. The first wheel pant took quite a bit of sanding to get the fit right, but it came along with a bit of patience and sandpaper.
And here is the right gear pant drilled and clecoed together. Now to start the other one.
Moving forward, I hope to get the fiberglass fairings and pants put together in the next few weeks, and get them to the point where they can be primed for later paint.
September 24, 2014
Weeks have gone by. I have done a bunch of work on the RV-8 but much of that has consisted of sanding fiberglass, an admittedly boring but necessary task.
I have been working on finishing the wheel pants and fabricating the upper and lower gear fairings. Weeks later, I am closer but not yet done.
Here, the process is starting with the fuselage jacked up and leveled. The wheel pants are aligned with the longitudinal centerline, and leveled with the longerons. They are then drilled and clecoed to the brackets attached to the landing gear assembly.
Before I got too far along on the setting up the wheel pants, I wanted to finalize the brake lines from the bottom of the fuselage to the brake cylinders on the wheels so as to accommodate the lines in the pants and fairings.
I fabricated the two lines by incremental adjustments and constant test fittings using 5052 tubing. As can be seen here, I attached them to the fuselage fitting and used some clear plastic tubing at several points along the lines to ensure that won't rub against structure.
And here is the bottom of the line where it attaches to the wheel cylinder with a relief bend included. I might add flexible hoses later but I suspect this will work just fine.
Wheel pants mounted and drilled and clecoed into position.
A step back to look at the landing gear with the pants in position.
I later pulled the fuselage off the sawhorses and let it sit on its landing gear for the same time. A photo opportunity availed itself, with my youngest son Nathan joining me. He has since moved to Paris...yep, Paris, France, with our soon-enough-to-be daughter-in-law and charming young lady Emile from Quebec...very exotic, all of this.
Back to the airplane in boring old Lincoln, though, and another step back view of the airplane on its landing gear.
Okay, one more view, then.
Then it was on to fabricate the gear fairings. I looked at what I needed to do and studied the instructions and a bunch of websites. Eventually you just have to do it, and I did, using modeling clay to approximate the shape of the lower fairings.
I had already covered the adjoining wheel pant and gear leg with mylar tape, and then covered the clay itself with more mylar tape, and then smeared some auto way over the tape to ensure an easy release. Then, using 9 oz fiberglass cloth and my epoxy, I laid up three layers of fiberglass over the area of the lower fairing. This is what it looked like then.
After it had cured for a day, I carefully cut the fairing off from its aft side. At this point, I expected to leave the joint on the fairing like this, and attach fairing to the wheel pants with screws and nutplates. This is different that the Van's instructions, which have you split the fairing along the line that joins the forward and aft wheel pants. The two fairing halves are permanently fiberglassed to the forward and aft wheel pant sections. I may be moving that way now, weeks later, as I think it might work better than my planned deviation.
A week later, I did the same process on the upper gear fairings. I had to try and measure out where the lower wing surface will sit when doing these fairings.
And here we are with three layers of fiberglass. Sounds simple but it can be a pain to work with the stuff. Messy and gloppy. Good thing is that any mistake can be repaired with a bit more mess and glop.
So here is one of the upper fairings cut off after curing.
Some sanding and filling later, we are getting closer to the final shapes but still more to go.
The wheel pants themselves were sanded down and then I applied a coat of undiluted epoxy and then squeegeed that off. Did that twice, then sanded, then added another layer. Getting close but still more to go.
One last look at the airplane as I move along.
Notable is that I now have a constant speed Hartzell 72" propeller that arrived last week. And, on order, a new Lycoming IO-360-M1B engine that should show up in November. I am, gulp, seriously committed to this airplane now. Possibly flying by the summer of 2015.
October 8, 2014
Continued work on the wheel pants and the landing gear upper fairings. I decided to incorporate the lower gear fairings into the wheel pants as per the RV-8 plans, which entailed more work on the wheel pants. I am getting closer but still a bit more tweaking needed.
Here is one set of wheel pants after the gear fairings were attached and the finish work nearly completed. Trying to fair the curves of the pants into the curve of the fairing takes quite a bit of sanding and filling. Afterwards, a coat of epoxy painted on and squeegeed off and, once that was tacky, another coat of the same. Then, after the epoxy cured, light sanding to finish it up. This ostensibly will fill in most of the pinholes. It ostensibly did, but I had I to repeat it with two more coats to really do it.
Still not perfect but nearing that acceptable level.
And here is the right side upper gear fairing in place with screws. I had to do a bit more filling with fiberglass and microbubbles. It is a bit of a wag to determine where that lower wing rubber joint seal will be when this is all completed. I think I am close. The right side fairing attaches with three screws, two on the aft end and one on the bottom. Nut plates are mounted. I may add one more screw at the front.
For the left side upper fairing, one screw is on the front and two are on the aft side. I may add a bottom screw here so both sides would be the same. It remains a work in progress.
I took a tip from a VAF posting about the nutplate and how they are mounted on the skin. Some guys use rivnuts or metal screws to attach. One clever gentleman simply mounted the nutplate on the surface and attached with pulled rivets. There is no structural component to these fairings and this method made practical sense to me. So, once the original hole was drilled (#27 drill for #6 screw), I enlarged the hole with a #19 drill, which allowed the nutplate to nestle in flush with the skin. Drilled the #40 holes for the rivets, and attached. The forward nutplate was bent to follow the curve of the skin. Worked pretty good in my judgment.
And, after I thought I had close to what I thought was nearly finished, I shot a thin coat of rattle can primer on the wheel pants to help reveal flaws. I found a few that need some more work but, fortunately, no pinholes. The gap between forward and aft sections need some work. I will end up sanding this off and recoating with two part primer in the near future.
Another view as the wheel pants come together and near completion.
November 5, 2014
Nearly another month has come and gone. Making progress even though I am not documenting it as often. Some big steps in the past week also...
So, to start, I have pretty much finished the fiberglass work on the wheel fairings. I primed all with two-coat epoxy primer in preparation for having them painted with Ranthane silver sooner or later. Not sure when yet; I might wait until the cowling is ready and have it all done at once. After priming, I still had a total of three pin holes I will need to address, but otherwise I think they came out pretty good.
While I was at it, I also primed the forward baggage door. This will be painted black as part of an anti-glare panel forward of the cockpit. Still to be decided: will this be a 'mock' anti-glare panel with glossy paint, or will I flatten the glossy down to semi-glossy or even flatter, and have a real anti-glare panel?
By the way, if anyone cares, the paint scheme I am duplicating, that of late 1930s-early 1940s Army Air Corps, used a shade named bronze green, so it was not black at all. However, I am using black. This will be applied forward of the cockpit almost to the propeller, if I have my say and I don't see why I wouldn't have my say.
So, I put away the fiberglass parts for awhile and move on to the next thing....
And, looky at what we have here...
Yep, this is an official YIO-360-M1B 4 cylinder 180-hp fuel injected hunk of Lycoming metal that showed up a few weeks ago. This is a big step for me and, presumably, any airplane builder. It is the largest single piece of investment to go into the airplane and is, actually, pretty important.
So, after I worked up my courage, I hooked up my Harbor Freight garage crane and pulled it out of the large shipping box. And here it is, accessory case view.
And, a side view. This thing weighs about 350 pounds with its shipping box. I'm impressed with it. I fully expect it to become my faithful and friendly partner in future journeys. My buddy.
So, I ditifully followed the Van's FWF directions, beginning with the installation of several fittings on the accessory side of the engine. This one is a restrictor fitting that will allow a hose to be attached that will go to the oil pressure sensor mounted on the firewall.
And this fitting is the line going to the oil cooler. The Van's directions make a big point of how hard it can be to install this fitting unless the right magneto is removed first. Happily, the fitting came installed with the engine so I had to do...nothing with it. Good to go.
I also fabricated a doubler that is installed behind this VA-168 sender mount that goes on the firewall. This mount can hold up to three transducers or sensors; I will use it for two: the oil pressure and fuel pressure Dynon sensors. So, I fabricated the doubler from the plans.
Here it is installed on the firewall with the AN823-4D fittings that the sensor hoses will attach to, both clocked to the specified direction prior to the VA-168 piece being installed. Can't do it any other way.
So, after I did all the preliminary fitting installation, I stared at the engine for awhile and decided to go ahead and install the engine on the engine mounts. Various instructions say not to do it alone, though some guys were quite able to do it alone, and I was one of them.
I found that, with the engine suspended on the garage crane, what was needed was a bunch of small adjustments and just a bit of brute force to get the engine where it was supposed to go. I think it might have been a bit more complicated with two or more involved. I was able to take each step slowly and think it worked out fine.
I started by studying the plans and instructions for quite a while. It is important to note that the upper and lower mounts are reversed as far as how they are installed, plus the washer set up is a bit different.
I was able to work the engine into the mounts starting with the lower mounts, then the uppers. Once all four were in place with the long bolts inserted, I added the washers and nuts and cinched down the castle nuts nearly tight. I then rechecked everything and studied how these four nuts would be properly tightened.
For what it is worth, by the way, I had to grind down a 5/8 box wrench to allow it to fit in the small bolt recesses on the engine. This worked fine.
From what Van's instructs, the nuts are tightened until they stop, basically with the rubber mounts compressed to the length of the steel inserts. Then they are adjusted to allow the installation of cotter pins on the castle nuts. Getting the cotter pins in place and installed was as much of a challenge as getting the engine mounted, but it worked out well enough.
And, another view with the engine mounted.
And one more, this one with personality. Dirty shirt.
So after a day or two of admiring my work, I got down to doing some preliminary installation set up. Lacking the exhaust pipes, I can't go too far here, but I wanted to see if my throttle and mixture cable installation done last year was going to work out.
As part of this process, I installed the Avstar fuel servo on the front of the engine. This Avstar fuel servo replaces the Precision Silver Hawk unit on engines being shipped by Lycoming nowadays. Who knew? I expected the better known Silver Hawk servo but ended up with the Avstar. I am counting on Lycoming and Van's to know what they are doing and are not cutting a corner to save a buck. I have read some good things about this servo, but some bad things too. But, the same is true of the Silver Hawk unit. Who knows?
Anyways, the throttle cable was long enough, but I was confused about how this linkage was going to work, as the throttle arm is in the wrong position. It is all cotter pinned and finished where it attaches to the servo, so I emailed Van's for a bit of help.
Yes, I am told, you may need to move the throttle arm to fit the installation. The Avstar servos have only been shipping a few months with the Lycomings, so newness "may account for the odd location of the arms." Who knew? I do see that the builder is pretty much left on his own with the engine installation; few drawings or explanations. I would imagine that Van's would say there are so many variations, but I would think that their recommended standard engine installation would be well documented and then it would be left to the individual builders to deviate as desired. Not the case here, but at least the questions ae answered quickly. Another learning experience for me. I will be asking a lot of questions, me thinks.
And, ditto for the mixture cable hookup. Have not explored this as thoroughly yet, but it appears the linkage arm will also have to be adjusted to gain the proper angles for the cable control attachment.
So, there you go. I have a bunch of stuff to hook up now. Once I get the exhaust installed I will proceed with the permanent installation on the bottom of the engine with the hoses and sensors and wiring. In the meantime, I am trying a couple of things out and researching away on the internet. Valuable resources out there.
November 20, 2014
Over the past few weeks I have been working on FWF items, slowly incorporating the engine into the airplane.
Here is the AVSTAR fuel servo throttle connection on the right side of the servo as I was getting ready to mount the throttle cable.
And, here is the throttle cable hooked up to the throttle arm. Fairly straight forward using the Van's throttle attachment kit which included the necessary bracket for both this and the mixture connection.
The mixture cable comes to the servo from the left side and the connection from cable to mixture arm is a bit more complicated.
But, again, using the Van's supplied bracket and other hardware, the connection is straight forward. I was satisfied with the control movement of both the throttle and mixture at the throttle quadrant when all was said and done. The main thing, apparently, is to make sure the throttle at the servo is fully open before the throttle control at the quadrant reaches the end of it travel.
Here is a view from the underside of the engine looking up, showing both the throttle cable and brackets and connections, and the same for the mixture. The green tape on bolts is my shorthand for "needs to be torqued." I plan to get a bit more sophisticated in the near future but it works.
I test fitted the alternator in order to get a better idea of how it was all going to come together and get an idea of wire runs in the engine compartment.
Here is where I placed the Dynon manifold pressure sensor on the firewall. I basically placed it by determining how far the Van's MP hose would comfortably reach. Very technical.
The manifold pressure sensor is connected to the Dynon EMS with three wires (actually a power wire, a sensor wire, and a ground wire). Small special pins are crimped onto the wires and then they go into a plug which plugs into the sensor.
The MP sensor line attaches to a fitting on the number 3 engine cylinder, and runs to the sensor with this hose. The fitting on the engine needs a restrictor to even out the MP indications on the soon-to-be Dynon Skyview MP cockpit readout. A $23 restrictor fitting was available from Van's, but I took a AN-823 steel fitting and drilled it out a bit and pressed an AN6 rivet into the end of the flared end of the fitting. Then, using a #59 drill, drilled a small hole into the rivet to provide the restricted airflow. Cost about $6 and took about 5 minutes. Okay then. Every dollar helps.
Here is a view of the three control cables coming though the firewall, as well as the two wiring penetrations. Nothing really new here except the cables are hooked up now to something. The two smaller cable pass throughs are (upper) to the heat valve and (lower) to the alternate air source door that will be installed on the fiberglass intake snorkel that will move air from the air filter intake to the fuel servo, in a few weeks, maybe.
Another view of the firewall pass throughs. This will all get organized and neatened up in its final configuration.
On the left side of the firewall and above the firewall pass throughs are the Dynon oil pressure and fuel pressure sensors. They are mounted here waiting to be wired into the Dynon EMS (Engine Monitoring System).
I installed the Hartzell propeller governor on the back of the engine. This proved to be a bit tricky because the instructions provided are for the MT governor and not the Hartzell governor. I used some of those fine Van's Air Force forum references for guidance here and got it set up, I think, properly. The adjustment plate on the aft end of the governor had have all six screws removed and rotated about 130 degrees to set it up. Worked fine.
Here is the other side of the governor with the Van's supplied mounting bracket holding the propeller control cable. With the cable connected, the propeller control in the cockpit stops short of its maximum travel at both high and low RPM settings, which is expected and normal. As long as the governor is getting full throw movement, all is good.
One of the minor issues in the RV-8 is the lack of antenna real estate, particularly for the ELT antenna and the GPS antenna. I am building my RV-8 to be WAAS capable to allow full LPV approaches to ILS minimums using the Garmin GTN-650 navigator. Therefore, I want the WAAS GPS antenna to be mounted as per Garmin's instructions, or as close as possible. I would say a majority of RV-8s with GPS antennas have them mounted on a tray attached to the firewall so they are below the fiberglass cowling and this seems to work satisfactorily. It does pose some shielding issues, however, and I am concerned enough that I have decided to mount the WAAS antenna right out in the open. I made a footprint of the antenna and plan to mount it on a small spacer right about here. The spacer will level the antenna laterally and should reduce or minimize any airframe shielding.
The other option for this antenna would be right behind the rear seat mounted alongside the canopy track, with the canopy structure barely clearing the antenna when the canopy is open or closed. That location seems to me to introduce the steel canopy fame into the equation, so the nose installation is preferable to me. A bit unsightly, but I'll get used to it. The antenna only comes in white, with a prominent "do not paint" warning etched into the antenna. This area of the nose will be painted black, so it will be a bit unsightly. By the way, I plan on using the Garmin GA-35 WAAS antenna here.
I am waiting for the Vetterman exhaust to show up, so I went ahead and started working on the upper cowling attachment hinges. The upper hinges are trimmed and, then, in the areas where they are sharply curved to match the fuselage, the individual hinge eyes are beveled to make the two hinge parts fit together without binding. When all was said and fitted, I saw no reason not to rivet the hinges to the fuselage. This will make the fitting of the upper cowl section easier since there will be no fuselage clecos to get in the way. Here are the hinge pieces installed.
And here is the upper cowling in position. I can't go any further with the cowling until the propeller is installed, but it is a start. And it does look cool.
The Vetterman crossover exhaust will come soon. Once it is installed, I can finish the underside of the FWF installation and finalize the wiring runs. I will install the SCAT tube for the cabin heat and the fuel lines also. After all the engine connections and wiring is completed, I will install the propeller, then the cowling work, then the engine baffles and the oil cooler. One step at a time.
