Monthly Archives: April 2018

Chapter 23 – Engine Pickling… MC

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“MC” for those of you never having filed a travel voucher for an Air Force mission was always the last 2-digit code annotated and stands for “Mission Complete” . . . which is currently the status of my engine pickling endeavor.

I will note that with the big task of welding up the engine stand mounting brackets and seeing my buddy Greg off over a couple of nights really put a dent in my schedule, and put me way behind the power curve time-wise.  Since I had a locked in rental on a moving trailer, and a locked in timeframe that I needed to be in NC, my back was somewhat against the wall.  Still, the primary goal here for me was to get this engine pickled, and then move what I could in the allotted time I had left.  I just was not going to risk any internal engine corrosion with any more time than was necessary.  In short, it was time to get this engine pickled.

With having removed the engine last night from the fuselage, I then did the limited trial and error dance for getting the bottom engine stand mounting bracket mounted to the engine mount.

However, the top mounting bracket was the big dance, and it took a couple of hours to dial that baby in.  The primary issue was that I forgot how the engine mount stubs –and thus the engine mount extrusions– are at a slight angle to follow the fuselage angle (this is denoted in the plans).

After much wailing & gnashing of teeth, a number of expletives and my new boneyard of broken drill bits (I think one side of the mount ended up so hot that it was in an annealed type state… since drilling a hole into it was like going through stainless steel) I finally got it all put together and then the engine mounted to the stand!

Here’s a better view of the engine mount attached to the engine stand mounting brackets.

And a couple of views from the top.

Ah, yes, and of course here we have a view more from the lower side.

I also drilled a hole through the lip of the oil drain valve to accept a 0.041″ piece of safety wire.  I then threaded the oil drain valve in place.  Unfortunately I was remiss in remembering that this was a Japanese made oil drain valve, and thus metric, so my 3/4″ wrench was just a hair loose on it.  When I really went to snug it up that last little bit I rounded a couple of the wrench flat corners over.  I then grabbed a 19mm wrench to finish up the last little bit of snugging it up tight.

I removed the spark plug cylinder dehydrators from the bottom side of each cylinder and replaced them with standard aircraft spark plugs.  I then removed the top spark plugs while I squirted preservation oil into each cylinder, and then replaced them with standard aircraft spark plugs as well.

I sprayed approximately 2 oz of PolyFiber Engine Storage Oil (ESO) into each cylinder when its piston was in the down (inboard) position.  I will admit that I realized as I was prepping for the pickling of the engine that an optimum solution would have been to have cover plates for both the intake and exhaust manifold ports, but I didn’t have either, and again, since I was in a time crunch I pressed forward and simply placed an oil drip pan underneath the engine for any runoff.

I will say that I shown a pen light into each cylinder with the top plug out, and what I saw on the each cylinder wall gave me a huge sense of relief.  I could see the honing of each cylinder wall with bright shiny metal and NO corrosion…. which I’m very thankful for.

I then poured 3 quarts of Phillips 66 20W-50 oil into the engine, fed in the remainder of the ESO and then poured in an unused quart of Harley-Davidson 20W-50 to top it off.

With my 4+ quarts of oil in the sump, I then flipped the engine upside down and let it sit that way for a good 5+ hours as I loaded up my rented moving trailer.  My goal here of course was to bath the top-mounted camshaft in a bunch of oil.

In my haste I failed to cap the oil heat return fitting so it spit out a bit of oil when I flipped the engine upside down.  Beyond that little issue the engine stand seemed to work exactly as I thought it would in allowing me to wrench on the engine and also rotate it as if it were on an “engine spit.”

Before I left for NC I turned the engine back right side up and attached the hook of the engine hoist to the top engine lifting tab.  I’ll turn the engine back upside down when I return from NC, but since I just welded up the engine stand mounting brackets I didn’t want to test my luck (just in case).

I did leave a bit of a gap between the engine hoist hook and the engine lift tab to allow me to quickly identify if any of the welds on the engine stand mounting brackets gave way while I was gone…. again, just a precaution with an expensive aircraft component.

For the final push on the engine pickling, as I was working on the engine I was also concurrently baking up another batch of pink desiccant.  Once it had turned blue and cooled, I then recharged all the cylinder dehydrators and the main engine dehydrator bin.  I then removed the top spark plugs and replaced them with the spark plug cylinder dehydrators.  Note that now the spark plugs are mounted on the bottom of each cylinder with the spark plug cylinder dehydrators on the top.

Again, I’ll be gone for a few days, and with the engine now off the fuselage and pickled for the time being, when I return I’ll be putting all my energies into building the nose and canopy to finish off the aircraft centerline build.

 

Chapter 23 – Engine Stand Brackets

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I’ll start by apologizing again for my POS phone camera…. it annoys me that apparently the only thing it’s good for is selfies.  But it’s all I have right now, so please bear with me as I bear with posting these crappy pics (that I often take 2-4 shots of and all are still slightly out of focus…. and yes, I’ve checked the settings many times!)

I started with a 1″ x 1″ angled steel bar that I had on hand.  It had some surface rust but I was able to remove the majority of it.  I then marked 4 x 1.5″ tabs on one end, drilled holes that would allow for a welded “hardpoint” between the flat intersecting pieces of metal being welded together, and cut the 4 x 1.5″ mounting tabs from the angled steel extrusion.

I then set the mounting tabs on the associated 1.5″ x 1.5″ angled steel main engine stand bracket cross pieces –top & bottom– to ensure I had them set in the right places.

Now, as I mentioned during my TIG welding setup it’s been a couple of years since I’ve welded, but with both the high expense of Argon gas and my limited time I jumped right in. I knew there was Argon in the bottle, but it was low enough it wasn’t really registering well. In addition, the nifty little cheat sheet weld chart that Lincoln gives out during the EAA Tig Welding Workshop called for a 3/32″ Tungsten electrode for 1/8″ steel. I only had 1/16″ on hand.

Nonetheless, I trudged forward and laid down some appropriately crappy welds my first go at it.  Towards the end of it I could tell I was definitely out of Argon gas, so with about 45 min left before the Gas shop closed I threw my empty tank in the truck and went on my quest to collect a fresh UBER EXPENSIVE ($90!!!) tank of Argon. [As a point of note, I ground and re-welded any of my initial welds that looked lacking in the strength department… with my limited time available, ugly welds here were acceptable as long as they were strong!]

Upon returning back to the shop with a fresh full tank of Argon and some 3/32″ electrodes, this was what the other side welds looked like.  Just a tad better I’d say… (yes, still not up to par with the gorgeous TIG welds we see on YouTube, but again, strength was what I was after here, not necessarily beautiful welds!).

With the lower engine stand mounting bracket complete, I then started on the top bracket. Once I was finished with the top bracket, I spray painted both engine stand mounting brackets with the same fast drying white paint that I used on the engine mount.

While the paint dried on engine stand mounting brackets, I then welded the 0.035″ walled 1/2″ 4031 steel tube inside the 1/2″ NPT x -8 AN oil heat 90° fitting.  It took me a bit to rig it up so I had good access and a good welding angle, and I have to say I was going along beautifully for the first 75% of the circumference of the weld.  I had to reposition the setup and I had only one little bit to go on the final weld when I slightly dipped the electrode into the puddle. Well, with so little to go I trudged forward to finish it.  Mistake.

Within about 2 seconds of dipping the electrode into the puddle –with my trying to concentrate on the thicker fitting’s base metal (I tend to go high on internal corner welds)– I blew about a centimeter diameter hole in the thinner walled tubing.  Since I had to buy a foot of this stuff, I ended up simply cutting a patch out for the hole from the other end of the tube.  I then prepped the patch piece and the hole area, and tacked it into place.

I ran some water through the tube to see if the patch worked, but I have a couple of leaking spots that I’ll need to do some touchup spot welds after I return from NC.  For now this is good, and I cut the 4130 tube at my calculated 4.4″ long (high actually).

I then ran out for a final going away dinner for buddy Greg since in reality this is the last time I’ll see him in quite a while.

When I returned, the quick dry paint had cured.  I then determined the best bolt hole locations for my configuration and drilled out the 1/2″ holes that allowed me to bolt the respective engine stand mounting brackets to the beefy engine mounting arms.

Here’s a closer shot.

With the engine mount ready to go, I then unmounted the engine from the fuselage.  I took this pic because I would often bump the engine and the starter bolt that I had setting in this location would fall off onto the shop floor.  However, it stayed right in its spot the whole time I removed the engine from the fuselage, so the operation must have gone fairly smoothly . . . both literally and figuratively.

Since I needed to make a decent amount of noise and do some grinding and drilling on the engine stand mounting brackets to get them mounted to the engine mount, I called it a night.

 

Chapter 23 – Tailored Sleeves

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I started off today prepping some of the metal that I’ll use in constructing the mounting brackets that I’ll mount the engine & engine mount to on the engine stand (say that 3 times fast).  That didn’t last very long before I had to pack all the compressor hoses back in the shop to go to a Dr’s appointment that took a good 3 hour chunk out of my day.

From there I grabbed lunch and headed to my local Village hardware store for some 1/2″ nuts & bolts for the engine mount stand brackets.  My best bud Greg from my Air Force days, who I rarely get to see, stopped by shortly after I got home for a few beers in the shop as I gave him the rundown on my build progress.  Greg got a new job down in the Norfolk area and will no longer be in this area as of Friday.  Since I’m leaving Thursday for North Carolina for a few days, I wanted to carve out some time to spend with Greg to send him off.

As you can see, the way my day unfolded I didn’t get much done on the build.

I did remove the prop and get it packed back up and put away . . . without incident.

I then decided to get something done on the build, and since it was too late to do all the grinding and metal cutting that I needed to do for the engine stand mounting brackets, I pulled off the -4 stainless steel braided fuel hose that runs from the fuel injection servo that’s mounted on the bottom of the engine to the fuel injection fuel distribution spider on the top of the engine.  I then took it upstairs and fire sleeved it.

As most of you are (painfully) aware, my phone camera is just not that good at capturing pics, and since I just couldn’t get both ends of the entire hose in focus….

. . . I took separate pics of each end of the hose.

I have to say that the first couple of hoses I fire sleeved I used up the stainless steel wire that came in the package with the ClampTite tool.  Little did I know at the time that they included 0.041″ stainless steel wire with the tool, because when I used 0.032″ wire on this hose . . .  wow, it understandably went from quite the struggle to a fairly EZ endeavor wiring up the fire sleeve on this hose.  Yes, the ClampTite tool is infinitely more enjoyable to work with when using smaller gage wire!

After sealing the bare hose end edges with gray 3M fire barrier Silicone RTV and covering that application with a strip of black heat shrink, I then reinstalled the hose on the engine. So here we have the freshly fire sleeved -4 hose connected to the fuel distribution spider atop the engine.

And here is the lower side of the fire sleeved -4 hose connected to the 90° outlet fitting on the top of the fuel injection servo.  Since I marred the Adel Clamp drilling its mounting hole out to 5/16″ diameter the last time, I’ll make up a fresh one it comes time to do the final install of the hose.

And one more shot of the newly fire sleeved fuel distribution outlet hose coming from the top of the fuel injection servo.

Tomorrow I’ll perform my welding tasks on the mounting brackets for the engine stand, get the engine off the fuselage and onto the stand, then appropriately pickle the engine.  After that I’ll roll solely into move mode to start packing up more of the house to get my stuff moved down to NC.

 

Chapter 23 – Clear Prop!

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So today was PICTURE DAY! Remember getting all dressed up (or your parents mandating that you get all snazzed up) for school picture day?  Well, that’s what I did for the shop.  I started off by spending well over 2 hours doing some much-needed spring cleaning on the shop.

During my cleaning I took a few minutes to remove the ANL40 from the front side of the firewall in the hell hole and put it back upstairs and will install it later when I finish up the electrical components install in the nose.

I then temp-mounted the propellor with the crush plate just for picture day. I was pleased with the how prop fit and looked mounted on the back end.

I took a slew of pics of course.  I ended up posting shots of the fuselage at different angles.  Believe me, I chucked a ton of pics out!  The main shot I was after was a straight shot from the aft end with the prop and wheel pants installed.

Here’s an angled aft view.

With these pics captured, my main goal is to weld up the angle-iron mounts that will allow the engine-on-mount to get mounted to the engine stand.

Although very close to the one above, I included this shot since it’s positioned a bit nose higher.

Another shot from a high angle.  In addition to the shots I took, my neighbor came over and set up all his photo shoot equipment and took a ton of pics with his high-end digital camera.   When I get those pics I’ll most likely post them here on my blog.

I’ll note that I’m very pleased with the how the wheel pants install turned out.

Here we have a shot of the installed right wheel pant with the canopy mocked up in place.

After the prop and fuselage pics were all taken, I then spent a good bit of time setting up my TIG welding kit for a good bit of welding that I need to do.  It’s been so long since I’ve welded with this box that at first I thought it was in-op.  Since this welder does stick welding as well, the ground connection on the front of the box is for stick welding, and the ground lead for TIG is actually labeled with a “+” sign…. which I finally figured out after spending a good amount of time tearing it apart and going through all the troubleshooting guides.

Tomorrow my focus will all be on welding, specifically the angle iron for the engine mount. In addition I’ll look to weld the oil heat standpipe tube to the 90° sump fitting and a tab on the aft right side of the roll over assembly to mount the canopy stay gas support.  Then my sights will quickly switch to getting the engine off the fuselage and onto the engine stand.

After I get all this welding done, and the engine on the engine stand, I’ll be transitioning into moving mode and to take a load of house stuff down to NC later this week.

 

Chapter 21/23 – Wired . . .

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I started out today with kind of a fun little project: assembling the engine stand that I picked up at Harbor Freight with a 20% off coupon.  As I was assembling it, a note in the instructions caught my eye: “Not for use with Aircraft” . . . hmmmm?

I also set the lengths of angled steel on the top and bottom mounts to provide an idea of how those will mount to both the engine stand and the engine mount (this angled steel was one of the pieces that Marco cut for me on his ginormous metal band cutting saw… which cut through this stuff like butter!).

I then did about 2 hours worth of spring cleaning in the shop to get it a little squared away for all the upcoming activity.

Next, although I didn’t get a pic, I mounted the right wheel pant.  I noted some trimming I’ll have to do on the wheel opening, but it’s seriously on the order of about a 1/16th of an inch.  That will get it in line with the opening dimensions spelled out by Gary Hertzler.  In addition, I took some measurements on the right wheel pant that I had already taken on the left.  The conclusion was that the wheel pants match perfectly from the gear leg forward to the front pant tip.  However, from the TE of the gear leg to the back tip of the wheel pant the right one is about 3/16″ farther aft, or maybe I should say 3/16″ longer.  No big deal and it was more of a curiosity thing than anything… I can tweak it a bit when I finish the wheel pants.

I then set my sights on mounting the 8″ prop extension to the flywheel and the engine prop flange.  It took about a half hour, a block of wood and a bunch of medium strength taps with a rubber mallet to get that sucker seated to within about 0.1″ of the flywheel. Then I very gently tightened all the bolts to get the prop extension to seat tightly against the flywheel.

Then, as per Sam’s (from Saber Manufacturing) directions, I torqued the 6 prop extension, prop flange and flywheel bolts to 50 ft-lbs each.

I then safety wired the bolts in pairs using 0.041″ stainless steel safety wire.

This is my first go at safety wiring, so if anybody out there sees anything disagreeable, please give me a shout.  I’m always open to constructive criticism.  Of course, I’ll have my EAA chapter bubbas look at the build as well.

Here’s the final shot of the installed prop extension.  Let me tell ya, the only time this thing is getting removed is when the alternator belt needs replaced! [Tomorrow I’ll test mount the prop and of course will take some pics… so I figured I would get the prop extension install out of the way today].

It was getting later in the evening, so I decided to relax and watch some TV while I played with my new toy: a ClampTite tool.  I removed and brought the fuel line and oil heat oil line with me upstairs.

Then, using the Clamptite tool (another first for me), I fire sleeved the 2 hoses.  Note that I’m using blue fire sleeve for fuel lines and black fire sleeve for oil.

As I’ve seen on Joe Caraggio’s site and others, there seems to be a requirement out there (or at least a good idea) to seal up the ends of the fire sleeve so the wool-type lining doesn’t soak up any stray oil, fuel, or what have you.  I had some of the expensive gray 3M fire barrier on hand so I decided to seal up the ends with that.

Here I’ve applied the 3M Fire Barrier to the ends of each fire sleeved hose….

However, I’m not a big fan of how the gritty, blotchy gray Hi-Temp RTV ends looked, so I cut a narrow piece of heat shrink and covered the RTV’d ends up…ahh, much better!

My final build act of the evening was to simply reinstall the hoses back onto the engine.  I definitely think the fire sleeving will work and I’m glad I went this route.

Tomorrow is picture day and my next door neighbor will be using his Uber awesome digital camera to get some nice aft end pics of my Long-EZ build.  Once that happens, my next goal will be to get the engine off the fuselage and onto the engine stand.  I’ll then drop all my engine focused shenanigans and will start on finishing up the nose and getting the canopy built.

 

Chapter 21/22/23 – Schooled . . .

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Today was a day of lessons for the ‘ol Airdog here.  First off, my buddy Dave B. asked me a question on this website regarding the use of an ANL type fuse link for the SD-8 backup alternator, and if I did use one was it located aft or in the nose?  Wow, ok… probably a question I should have asked myself and a big oversight on my part.

As I see it (after Dave’s prompting) the logic flows like this: I just moved the ANL40 fuse link on the B-Lead aft because the antagonist in my view was the main 40A alternator.  I again based this off of Bob’s statement that the fuse should be closest to the offending power source.  Ok, now the SD-8 backup alternator is in the back as well, but its 30A fuse –as spelled out specifically in the Z-13/8 system architecture– must be located within 6″ of the master contactor (in the nose).  But why?  The key I discovered is identifying the potential antagonistic power source, which I had done incorrectly.

I posted this question on the AeroElectric Connection forum and almost immediately got a response: the alternators are not the main point of concern since if the wire leads from them are rated at the max current they can produce, then the wire will be safe.  However, the battery is a source of potentially hundreds of errant amps hitting the wire if it decides to go a little haywire.

Thus, I had picked the wrong villain, and as Sun Tsu says, “Know your enemy.”   I did not. This of course meant that my action to move the ANL40 fuse link aft was all for naught, and moreover, incorrect.  Lesson learned.  So, my latest diagram should be depicted as such:

And my new configuration for the ANL40 is nothing more than my previous CORRECT depiction, shown here.   Ahh, the circle of life…. ha!  I haven’t yet moved the ANL40 fuse link, but I will be leaving the mounting pad on the face of the firewall in the hell hole until I know for certain that nothing else needs to get mounted in there.

In a subsequent discussion Dave and I discussed alternators going haywire, and as a point of note I’ll state that alternators such as the ones B&C sells have built-in OverVoltage protection to guard against runaway alternator current causing damage.

Moving on.

I had a lengthy discussion this afternoon with Mike Beasley, who many of you may know from his awesome website.  (Admittedly, there’s not a lot of verbiage on his site, but for the fellow Long-EZ builder the pictures on his website are a treasure trove of information).

Lesson #2 of the day for me was Mike providing me with the finer points of how he constructed his canopy.  We spoke a bit on a few other topics such as throttle and mixture cables, but the near 2-hour long conversation focused primarily on the canopy and nose build.  I am very thankful for the time that fellow Canardians take to collaborate on such tasks as this, and it really does make the build so much more manageable (and enjoyable).

While I discussed the canopy and nose build with Mike, the FedEx guy delivered my last (hopefully) round of fittings that I ordered from Summit Racing.  Again, my first choice for connecting the hose coming down from the fuel distribution spider atop the engine to the -4 AN 90° fitting on top of the fuel injection servo was the 150° hose end fitting.  And as I mentioned before, my backup was a 90° hose end fitting if the 150° hose end didn’t work out.

Quite nicely, however, the 150° hose end fitting worked like a champ!

For this fuel line, I also employed and test fitted an Adel clamp secured by the front left corner bolt where the induction air intake elbows mate together.  I think this Adel clamp position will work nicely to secure the -4 hose going to the fuel distribution spider from the top-mounted fitting on the fuel injection servo.

Here’s a bit closer view of the -4 fuel line feed to the fuel distribution spider from the fuel injection servo.

I then took a while to figure out and dial in the position and angle of my oil sump oil heat feed line that exits out of the bottom of the oil sump via a 90° steel fitting (that I calculated a 4.4″ tall standpipe will get welded to) to a firewall pass-thru fitting.  I had some angled hose end fittings on hand, but decided that to keep a nice constant curve around the RAM air box that I’d use straight hose end fittings.

I then spent a couple of hours assessing and dialing-in the flow and Adel clamp attach point for the final piece of hosing to complete the fuel line from the fuel intakes in the main strake-located fuel tanks to the cylinder fuel injector nozzles: the -6 hose from the fuel pump to the fuel injection servo.

At the fuel pump side I actually entertained the idea of cutting part of the flat flange insert at the corner of the engine mount in order to have the fuel pump out hose end fitting face outboard of the engine mount tube.  But, laying below the engine looking straight up at it, I realized that more of the hose end fitting was showing on the inboard side than the outboard side, meaning that I could get a more down angle of the hose end fitting by leaving it inboard.  So, no drilling or cutting of the engine mount flange took place.

On the fuel injection servo side, I had planned on actually running the hose aft and looping it in from the aft side to arrive at the fuel injection inlet fitting at a 0-45° angle. But then after looking at and assessing the travel of the mixture lever on the fuel injection servo, I decided to simply bring the fuel line down from the top from a slight forward-to-aft angle.

So here it is: the final fuel line piece for this entire aircraft.  Yes, of course the fuel VENT lines will still need to be run, but this does it for the actual fuel lines.

Tomorrow I’ll prep for the removal of the engine since I have the lion’s share of data that I need from having the engine mounted.  Moreover, I’ll most likely clean up the shop and take some pics of engine mounted on the fuselage before removing it.

 

Chapter 23 – RAM’in Air

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Today, after a fair amount more research, I got down to the shop and pulled the trigger on drilling the 3-1/8″ hole in my firewall for the nose flange of the RAM air canister to fit into. As you can see by the original marks on the firewall, my new location is significantly higher on the firewall than where I had planned to place it originally.

I then test-fitted the RAM air canister and as I’ve mentioned many previous times, it does just fit . . . barely.  But it fits!!

Here we have the RAM air canister peeking through the firewall from the Hell Hole side.

And even though the RAM air canister is tilted down a bit on the aft end –since I’m not holding it in place– you can see the position of the aft air exit hole and how a piece of tubing from the RAM air box to the fuel injection servo will be clear of any entanglements from above such as the oil drain valve and the oil heat feed fitting.

Since I moved the fuel injection servo forward to position the top 90° outlet fitting into a “V” groove on the bottom side of the Superior cold air induction plenum for clearance, that reduced the distance between the aft face of the RAM air canister to the front face of the fuel injection servo from 5.5″ down to only 3.7″.  Still enough to allow flexing between the firewall-mounted RAM air canister and the engine-mounted fuel injection servo.

Also note in the pic below that the tubing in-between the 2 units will need to curve upward at the aft end about 1/4″ due to the position and angle of the fuel injection servo.  I don’t see this as being an issue since I will be using flexible SCEET tubing.

Here’s a wider angle shot showing a close view of how the units will look in their final installed configuration.

I then spent a good 30 minutes dialing in the location of the firewall mounted MAP sensor/ fuel pressure sensor/oil pressure sensor manifold block.  I think I’ve pretty much got it’s mounting spot located, but need to check just a couple more things.

I then started reviewing my canopy install and build plans.  I set the 4130 steel rollover assembly in place as well as the headrest to prep for putting the canopy in place and assessing clearances [A couple notes: A) the headrest will get repainted since I had that issue with 2 different paint styles coming from cans with the same label, and B) the white thing on top is my GPS Antenna “radome”… in case you were wondering.)

I then grabbed my canopy out of the back room and set in place on two 2x boards. Although the angle is still a tad bit shallower than I’d prefer on the front of the canopy, I still like this canopy much better than my first one.

Here’s a canopy shot from the front that I was curious to see.

With that, tomorrow I’ll be finalizing my engine-related tasks in prep for pulling the engine off the fuselage and mounting it to its engine stand, and concurrently I’ll be prepping for the nose and canopy install/build.

 

Chapter 16/22 – B-Lead fuse link install

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Since I know I’m off my engine removal schedule by a day or two, while I await the fittings to finalize the fuel/oil lines I worked on something that I want to get done as a self-perscribed prerequisite to drilling the 3-1/8″ hole in the firewall for the RAM air canister: mounting the ANL40 fuse link and base.

If you recall, after much consideration I modified my starter and charging circuit design by separating out the B-Lead into its own dedicated cable and by moving all the associated components to the nose-located battery compartment as such.

However, even though this configuration has been implemented successfully (reportedly), I was never too keen on the ANL40 being so far removed from the line it was protecting.  I chalked it up to 2 things, made a mental note to assess it, and then pressed on.  Those 2 things were that A) Again, its working in a real-world install, and B) 10 feet is not a huge distance to electrons that travel the speed of light.

However, as I pointed out a couple of days ago, Bob Nuckolls reminded me of a core principal that I was not following in regards to my ANL40 Fuse Link location when he stated, “Recall that circuit protection is for WIRES . . . and that the protective device is installed as close as practical to the SOURCE of energy that puts the wire at risk.”

Again, as a result, my ANL-40 fuse link is going back on the firewall, on the hell hole side. However, instead of employing a 1/8″ thick x 1/2″ wide copper strip, I went with my optional configuration and am using 8 AWG cable to connect the forward (hell hole) stud of the Blue Sea terminal to one side of the ANL40 with the GRT EIS HALL EFFECT SENSOR placed in-between, then run the B-lead from the ANL40 forward to the battery contactor. Therefore, my new starting & charging circuit configuration now looks like this:

My 2 goals for the day were to install both the ANL40 base, fuse link, etc. and the GRT EIS Hall Effect sensor.

I started by ginning up a phenolic nutplate assembly with the same #10 screw pattern as the ANL40 base.  Since the fuse link sits in the middle of the 2 posts on the base, the only screws that can be used are countersunk screws.  Since I’m mounting the unit on the front face of the firewall I clearly can’t put nutplates on the aft firewall face, so I had to go with a in-Hell Hole surface mount solution.

Here’s the aft side of the ANL40 nutplate assembly.

And a couple shots of the nutplate assembly installed on the ANL40 mounting base.

To embed the nutplate assembly onto the forward firewall surface in the Hell Hole, I made a mounting pad for the ANL40 mounting base from 3/8″ PVC foam.

I then carefully carved out a notch for the nutplate assembly in the foam mounting pad.

Here’s a bottom shot of the foam mounting pad with the nutplate assembly installed.

I then used 3 plies of glass (BID/UNI/BID), prepregged, and glassed the ANL40 foam mounting pad with the nutplate assembly flocro’d into place (with all the typical pre-work: micro-ing foam, etc.).  Again, the mounting pad was glassed onto the forward side of the firewall in the hell hole.

Off topic a bit here, but as the layup above cured, I decided to finish off the elevator control rod by drilling a #10 hole and mounting an AN3-7A bolt into the hole (IRRC this is a Ken Miller mod….).  The bolt will be in addition to the clevis pin that secures the forward side of the elevator control rod to the aft side.

A few hours later I cleaned up the cured layup (yes, I used fast hardener) and test installed the 2 ANL40 base mounting screws.  I also trimmed the glass overhanging the existing firewall electrical package component holes and redrilled the upper holes for the mounting screws.

I then mounted the ANL40 base into place with the 2 countersunk screws.

And remounted all the firewall electrical package components (again, except for the ANL40, these are all temp mounts until the Fiberfrax and 6061 aluminum firewall cover are in place).  I uploaded both pics of this since they show a bit different viewing angles.

Being able to get a feel for the space between the Blue Sea B-Lead connector (it’s red) and the ANL40 base, I then got to work finalizing the GRT EIS Hall Effect sensor configuration.  I trimmed the long 8 AWG wire and terminated the Blue Sea connector end with a 3/8″ terminal.  I also labeled & trimmed the ground wire, then terminated it with a Fast-ON PIDG terminal.

I slipped on the white rubber boots, and Voila! Ready for install.

Since I’ve had the actual ANL40 fuse link for a number of years, there was a bit of tarnish on the metal blade connectors so I used a Scotchbrite pad and some white vinegar to clean them up a bit.

I then installed the ANL40 fuse link into its base, on top of the glassed-in foam mounting pad (with the embedded nutplate assembly) and then got busy connecting all the cables to their appropriate mounting lugs.

I also co-ran the red 14 AWG SD-8 backup Alternator power feed wire through the GRT EIS Hall Affect sensor a couple of passes (both the primary alternator B-Lead and the SD-8 backup power feed get passed through the Hall Effect sensor twice to place the readout scale on a 0-50 Amp scale vs a 0-100 Amp scale… the latter which I don’t need since my primary alternator only puts out 40 Amps max).

The route of the electrons is this: Alternator current runs via B-Lead to the firewall side of the Blue Sea pass-thru connector (red fitting), then on the inside of the Blue Sea pass-thru a cable runs to the right post (in pic below) of the ANL40 fuse link VIA 2 passes through the Hall Effect sensor donut.  Then, from the ANL40 left post (again, as depicted in pic below) an 8 AWG B-Lead cable carries the current up to the nose, connecting to the Master Battery Contactor (as depicted in my updated diagram way up there ↑).

Here’s a closer up shot of the installed ANL40 Fuse Link.

In addition, you can also note that I used a decent sized piece of heat shrink to seal and cinch up all the wiring going through and wrapped around the Hall Effect sensor donut.  It may seem like the Hall Effect sensor is left to sway to-and-fro in the wind, but with the robust 8 AWG cable securing it in place, and the amount of force I had to apply to get both terminal ends in place (not excessive, but it’s tight) …. that puppy ain’t budging!

Another angled shot of the ANL40 fuse link for the alternator’s B-Lead feed and the GRT EIS Hall Effect sensor . . . plus note the additional “big” wire runs that are deemed big enough to hang out and traverse the fuselage with the big yellow cables.

And a final parting shot for the evening.

Tomorrow I’ll continue to work my tail off to get all the engine & firewall components/hoses installed, ID’d, configured, and/or mounted AND data collected before I pull the engine off the fuselage.  [I will note that I baked 2 batches of pinkish colored desiccant to refresh the engine dehydrator].

 

Chapter 23 – Cowl me crazy!

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I actually spent quite a few hours today building a lower cowling dolly that you’ll see in a number of the pics below.  I saw one of these in Walter’s hangar as we were helping remove the wings off of his Long-EZ and thought it was a good idea.  Well, although I got the dimensions from Marco, they didn’t translate over for whatever reason to my cowling and build dimensions (possibly since my fuselage isn’t loaded all the way down?).  I still used it to a degree, but I will have to mod it much further for it to really be helpful.

My goal today was to mock up the lower cowling in its close to final position (as best possible) to check the clearance between it and the engine air induction system… specifically the fuel injection servo.  To better ascertain the position of the lower cowling, I went ahead and set the top cowling in place, which I was going to do in short order anyway.

I then used duck tape to help wrangle the 2 cowling halves into some semblance of order. I’m definitely happy with the fit of the cowlings, and although Mike Melvill had an IO-360 inside of them, trust me, they are still a close fit to an IO-320 sized engine.

I taped the cowling at the top cowling-firewall interface, and was glad to confirm I have a good firewall fit, with the shape of it matching the cowling shape.

Since I had the top cowling close to its final position (I double-checked the plans, my notes, other builders’, etc. to ensure I had it close to where it needed to be…) I then made some templates to use for the cowling angle interface with the canopy and D-deck/ turtledeck assembly.

Here’s another view of my canopy-top cowling interface angle template.  Clearly I will most likely need to throw a curve into the mix as I mount the canopy, but it gives me a good starting point.

I also drew hash lines on the longerons and marked the extended angle of the top cowling contour about 18″ forward of the firewall.

Here’s my version of the lower cowling dolly.  Mine needed to be much wider front to back and much taller than the one that Walter built for his airplane.

As you can see, I removed the top cowling to better check the clearance between the bottom cowling floor and the fuel injection servo.

Here’s the best shot I could get of the fuel injection servo position inside the lower cowling. It may be hard to tell, but in this configuration there is NO clearance and the cowling is actually just touching the fuel injection servo. In fact, the very bottom nub sticking out to the right on the servo is the main fuel feed line attach fitting… clearly no room even to connect the fuel feed hose!

Very frustrated and perplexed on my no-clearance issue with my lower cowling, I took a break and grabbed something to eat.  After about an hour, with the worst case scenario of having to extend a trough under the lower cowling in my mind, I went back down to the shop to assess the clearance issue.

As I was literally sitting under the engine just looking at the layout, I came up with a very viable solution.

You see, my paradigm was that the main fuel line was coming in from the right side, and the hose coming in from the fuel distribution spider on the top of the engine was from the left.  No need to change any of that, but I did need to rethink the one thing that was really causing my clearance issues: the -4 AN 90° fitting on the top of the fuel injection servo. I had it pointed to the left as I lamented the lack of clearance between it and the bottom of the oil sump . . .

But if I moved the servo about 1/2″ forward (which I could do since I had spacers installed in between the elbows), not only did it push it forward to where the cowling was lower, but if I faced the top fitting to the RIGHT then it put the fitting right into a V-shaped channel on the bottom of the Superior cold air induction oil sump.  This allowed clearance to get the hose end fitting onto the servo outlet fitting!  Yes, I would have to spend another $20+ on yet another hose end fitting, but by doing this configuration change it gave me 2 options: A) Run the fuel distro spider hose above the fuel injection servo and in front of the air duct elbows with a 150° U-turn hose end fitting, or B) Run the fuel distro spider hose aft of the air duct elbows with a 90° hose end fitting (I’ll admit that to acquire the best solution here I bought both fittings…).

I’ll have to assess this when I get the fittings in and test these fuel line runs.  This leaves the right side main fuel feed line unaffected and it will still attach to the fuel injection servo on the right side (low).

The resulting change in my configuration will require only about a 3/16″ phenolic spacer between the lower 85° elbow and the fuel injection servo.  I will also have to replace the threaded studs on the cold air induction plenum for connecting the upper elbow to the plenum (at a minimum the lower studs, since it is virtually impossible to get a nut with so many washers on them with the current configuration).

In figuring out the final install point and configuration of the RAM air canister (not pictured here) I needed to install the 1/2″ NPT elbow on the bottom of the oil sump to assess how to route the hose from the sump to the firewall…. around the RAM air canister.  I tested a 90° hose end elbow (blue & red) but think a straight hose end may work as well.  However, since the oil heat feed line from the sump looks like it will enter the firewall on the lower left side, this will require the associated hell hole oil line to crossover from the right side oil pump fitting over to the lower forward left side of the firewall (again, crossover in the hell hole).  Not a big deal, but I will have to avoid and go above the RAM air intake expansion chamber ( . . . never-ending ripple affects!).

The bottom line is that it looks like all the components should fit, but the clearances from one component to the next are all AMAZINGLY CLOSE (but, I will note not too close to allow vibration to cause issues).

Here we have the oil drain valve with the oil heat feed 90° fitting just behind it (pic from right side of engine).

I’m fairly confident that this configuration will give me just enough of the clearance I need below the fuel injection servo and allow for all the critical air induction and underside oil sump fittings to play nicely with each other.

Of course I will have to also rotate both the fuel injection servo’s throttle and mixture levers to avoid hitting the lower cowling (I planned out the mods on those a few days ago), but again, I don’t foresee any issues with those as well.

I think with these sideline tasks taking a bit more time than I expected, my timeline for getting the engine back off the firewall and onto its stand will have to slip a day or two. Tomorrow I should be close to finishing up the firewall configuration tasks and pulling any more data I need to from the engine being mounted.

 

 

Chapter 16/23 – Air, MAPs & Elevator

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I started off today by making a decision on my electrical system, one that had been nagging me a bit in the back of my mind.  The impetus for me making this decision today was a response by Bob Nuckolls on the Aeroelectric Connection forum that brought it all home for me.  In a discussion on something else related to protecting wires with fuses and circuit breakers, Bob noted: “Recall that circuit protection is for WIRES . . . and that the protective device is installed as close as practical to the SOURCE of energy that puts the wire at risk.”

Thus, my ANL-40 fuse link is going back on the firewall, on the hell hole side.  I’ll most likely use a piece of 1/8″ thick x 1/2″ wide copper to connect the forward (hell hole) stud of the Blue Sea terminal to one side of the ANL-40, then run the B-lead from the ANL-40 forward to the battery contactor (however, I’m leaving the option open to use 8 AWG cable and use this connection as the location for the GRT EIS Hall Effect sensor).  This configuration will add a hair more weight aft, but puts better protection on the source of the B-Lead and cleans up my busy nose battery compartment a bit.

I didn’t mention conversations I had yesterday with both Rod Bower (RAM air unit) and Precision Airmotive (Silver Hawk fuel injection) as Marco and I were convoying in our separate trucks to his hangar.  I asked the Silver Hawk guys if I could attempt to thread the -4 AN fitting on the top of the fuel injection servo as far as it would go into the unit in order to attain as much clearance as possible with the bottom of the cold air induction plenum situated just above the fitting.  They said this would be no problem and that I wouldn’t damage anything internally/inside the fuel injection servo.

I queried Rod on some specifics about moving my RAM air box forward and mounting it directly to the aft side of the firewall, but he couldn’t picture it mentally and I ended up sending him the pic below much later after I arrived back home.

Rod got back to me today and we discussed mounting his RAM air unit with the nose of it sticking into the firewall, with about a 5.5″ gap between it and the front face of the fuel injection servo intake plate.  The requirement for this gap between the RAM air canister –which would normally mount to the front of the fuel injection servo– is twofold: 1) The RAM air canister is too wide at the aft side of it (note that it’s shaped somewhat like an Apollo capsule) and would interfere with the bottom cowling.  2) There would be no clearance for neither the oil drain valve (brass valve in pic below) nor the forward-placed sniffle valve.

To allow for enough clearance with the aft end of the RAM air canister with both the oil sump above it and the lower cowling below, I determined that it must be mounted in the clear space just forward of the oil sump.  This spot will allow the RAM air canister to be mounted an inch or so higher and still clear all the top side oil sump/cold air induction plenum and the lower cowling below . . . barely! 

[In the pic below you can see the location of my initial planned hole for a 3″ bracket (shown bottom left corner), then a piece of 3″ SCEET tubing, then the RAM air canister mounted to front face of the fuel injection servo.  Clearly, the reality of limited space and conflicting requirements for use of that space significantly changed the configuration of my air induction system.  Currently the plan is to install the nose of the RAM air canister approximately 1″ higher than the circle depicted on the firewall below].

After some discussion Rod was able to see what I was talking about and signed off on the plan.  In response to my question, he stated that he saw no ill affects in his assessment of my running a 2.5″ piece of SCEET tubing from the aft side of the RAM air canister to the front intake of the fuel injection servo (note smaller diameter than that previously planned 3″ SCEET tubing preceding the RAM air canister).

After getting Rod’s sign-off on the new air induction configuration, I then got busy mounting the Electroair MAP sensor unit on the front face of the firewall in what will be the GIB headrest/D-Deck component housing.

I marked the holes and here you can see the top 2 holes are drilled.

I then had to make some minor adjustments for hole alignment as I drilled the remaining 2 holes.

I then test fitted the MAP sensor, but will hold off on the actual screw install since I don’t have good access with the engine installed to the aft side of the firewall (the screws will get floxed in from the aft side of the firewall to the front side to create 4 screw posts… analogous to click bonds).

And another shot of the final placement of the GRT and Electroair MAP sensor units.

I then got busy assembling the new 5/8″ elevator control rod that would replace the old one that I so haphazardly decided to drill an extra hole into.  I used some larger rivets that Chris Seats gave me and got busy drilling and mashing rivets!  Here’s the assembled product.

Here you can see the internal rod that Marco lathed down the diameter of and cut to length.  We of course cut the 2 main tubing pieces to length as well.  Since I have so much real estate on the top end of the quick disconnect internal solid rod, I’m going to drill an extra #10 hole and actually install an AN3 bolt and nut in addition to the clevis pin.

Here’s a shot with the Atkinson pitch trim actuator bolt slid into the bolt hole that I drilled on this new 5/8″ elevator control rod.  Again, the internal solid rod that makes up the quick disconnect also extends down beyond the pitch trim actuator bolt hole so the hole is much more robust than on the previous elevator control rod.

And here’s a view of the other side of the pitch trim actuator connecting bolt.

Tomorrow I’ll continue to finish up engine-related tasks and will specifically focus on the final placement and configuration of the air induction components.