I started out today by pulling the weights off the freshly floxed in place oil check door securing tube on the inside/underside of the door.  Thankfully when I pulled the weights off the door, it stayed in place… nice ‘n flush with the surrounding top cowl surface.

I pulled the wire out from the securing tubes and pulled the oil check door off the cowling.  Yeah, it’s not pretty, but it seems to be in the right spot to keep the door shut tightly into/onto the top cowling.

I mixed up some more epoxy, added some flox in a few key areas around the tube and then filled the remaining bigger gaps with dry micro.  I cut and laid up 2 plies of carbon fiber across the tube and peel plied the layup.  I set it aside to cure overnight.

I grabbed the molds I made of the forward side of the prop spinner to specifically use them as templates for cutting out the prop notches in the real spinner.  Using my cardboard template I transferred the notch opening to the first spinner template (pic 1) and then cut the notch (pic 2).  I’ll note, and as you can see, the templates are in 2 separate halves.

I then set the template in place around the prop blade and taped it to the flow guide.

I spent nearly 2 hours slowly dialing in the prop notch opening on this spinner template.  As I suspected, transferring the opening from a flat, albeit curved, cardboard template to this template with all kinds of curves going on made for some required adjustments (thus the green tape for back filling the edge).

Getting closer… (It’s an iterative process!)

Once I got pretty darn close on the first half template, I took about 20 minutes measuring the outer diameter to get as close to 180° out on the second template as possible.  I then marked up the second template and cut it out as well.

I noted these templates are of the OUTER surface of the prop spinner, so while they are great for getting the general shape and spacing of the prop blade notches configured, they are not exactly the size required.  In short, I’ll be cutting the notches on the actual prop spinner a little smaller and then work through the process of widening those out in situ around the prop blades.

Overall not a bad outing, although it took way longer than I thought it would to dial in these prop blade notches.  It was getting late and I wanted to hit it fresh again tomorrow as I hope to take the plunge and get the actual prop spinner notched and installed.

That being said, I got a request from my friend to take her to an appointment tomorrow down in Wilmington.  This is going to wipe out the majority of my shop time tomorrow, but I’ll do what I can.

Pressing forward… or trying to at least.

I had another social event that kept me out of the shop for nearly half the day, but I was still able to get some stuff knocked out.

First off, the top cowling’s oil check door has been a gnawing issue since after I set the door in place and attached it to the hinge.  The hinge construction gives it very little flex, and with the door having compound curves, attaching it to the hinge assembly greatly disrupted the door’s contour and how it flowed with the surface of the cowling.

Over the past few days I’ve been assessing and resetting how the door is secured to the cowling, but those are just symptoms —albeit important— but the core of the issue was the door-to-hinge attachment.  I had to remedy that to remedy any further oil check door fitting issues.

So I drilled out all the rivets and hit the hinge assemble with the heat gun enough to allow me to pry the hinge off the door.  I then heated up the door a bit and flexed it back into its original position, which it seemed amenable to.

I then put the oil check door back into position on the top cowling, weighed it down (note the aft inboard corner specifically getting weighed down as well) and heated it up a good bit with the heat gun.

I then took my friend’s daughter out for a late lunch and went to an arcade for about 4 hours.

Upon my return I removed the weights off the oil check door and was pleased to see that it was pretty much back to original shape and configuration… as in NOT all wonky in relation to the upper cowling.

After some more checks I realized that even though I had reset the forward and aft securing wire tubes attached to the top cowling, now the door was a little proud due to the door’s attached crosstube.  In short, something had to give and I figured I would attack the one remaining tube and get this oil check door snugged up tight —on the outboard side at least— in its position on the cowling.

With my Fein saw and Dremel tool I proceeded to remove nearly all of the cross tube attached on the underside of the oil check door.  I confirmed that the forward tube alignment was good and snug, it was just the aft side causing the door to sit a little proud, or high.

Now, I took a bit of gamble here in that I was working in the blind on resetting the door’s cross tube in place with flox.  Yet another reason I kept the front side attached.  I greased up the securing wire and added flox to the door’s cross tube before setting it in place and running the wire through all the securing tubes.  This has the door secured in its position [sans hinge] with the door cross tube floxed into position.  Then, to ensure the door tube cures with the oil check door as tightly in position as possible to the cowling, I weighed down the door again… and also that aft inboard corner as well.

I then left the door to cure overnight.

My goal for today was to get the prop spinner cut for the prop blades and have it on the bird, but that didn’t happen.  I did lay the groundwork though by getting a good start on creating the blade cutout template, with this being my first attempt.

I then refined my prop spinner blade hole cutout template with version #2.  Here I actually have the cutout configured to allow the spinner to get mounted around the prop blades.  Since I had taped thin cardboard to the prop blades to protect them during this process, I needed to get the clearance gaps pretty tight up next to the taped blade surface…

Which I was better able to do with template version #3.  It was getting quite late in the evening, and tomorrow I’ll pull the cardboard from the prop blades and simply use only tape before doing my final template version.

This shot of the prop spinner cutout template version #3 also provides a good shot of the “razor” trimmed 3-ply carbon fiber layup that I just completed, and the top cowl aft edge sanding that it allowed me to do.  Except for a few small spots, I’m back to 3/8″ clearance between spinner flow guide and cowling.

My final task of the evening was making up a template for the front-of-prop-blade gap filler piece that will cover that exposed area.   Here’s version #1.

Followed by version #2, which offers a bit more coverage of the gap.  I’m sure there’s a few more versions of these templates before I take the ‘knife’ to the prop spinner.

But it was late, so I called it a night.

Pressing forward!

I got a late start today having returned from Wilmington mid-afternoon and then having to give my friend’s daughter a ride to some of her friends’ house.

But I did get another round of tweaking the top cowl oil check door in… by getting the aft door securing wire tube marked (pic 1) and then cut out (pic 2).

With the door set back as firmly closed as possible, and secured in place with Gorilla duct tape (no spring!) I then proceeded to reset the wire-securing brass tube in place with flox.  I then covered that all up with 2 plies of carbon fiber, and peel plied the layup.

The clamp is to keep the wire pressed down against the inside top of the cowling, as I have the wire reversed and inserted just enough to keep the door configuration set.

I had cut out 3 plies of carbon fiber a couple of days ago in my assessing how to get as much clearance as possible with my current top cowling-to-prop spinner configuration.

At this point, the only options I really have left is a radical top cowl backend rebuild, or a more finessed approach of adding a few plies on top to then remove a few plies on the bottom… or actuality simply sanding the inside edge at a beveled angle to remove a good 0.06-0.08″ of cowling edge to keep it away from my prop spinner.  That should get me back to about a 0.36″ gap… which is about as good as I’m going to squeeze out of this setup.

In my quest to continually add more weight to this bird, I also addressed the meeting point (AKA “firewall”) of the sharp colliding angles of the canopy/D-deck on the forward side (left in pic below) and the aft flange that is aligned with the flow of the top cowl. It’s not too bad on the right, but on the left side I have a decent little dip, or trench, that I don’t want to simply trowel in a thick trough of micro.  I decided a judicious application of glass here would be good to fill the trough a bit, then allow the micro to be used in its clean-up role.

Here’s the firewall-located dip on the turtledeck:

I grabbed a small length of 3″ wide UNI spar cap tape, cut off 6″ long by about half the width of the tape (1.5″).  I then split that into thirds and cut 1/3 to to 4.5″ long and the last 1/3 to 3″ long (sorry, I should have grabbed a pic).  I pre-pregged the UNI so that ALL the ends started at one side [thick at bottom, narrow at top] and then wet it out.  In addition, I cut a single ply of BID about 6.7″ long x 1.5″ wide to cover the UNI.

Once the UNI strands were wet out, I laid them up in the trough, got them oriented and smoothed out fairly even, then covered them with the 1 ply of BID.  I then peel plied the layup.

I was trying to get to work on the prop spinner to get it cut to allow mounting over the prop and secured to the flow guide.  I was able to get the prop taped up to protect it as I shape the prop spinner, with the upcoming requisite on & off iterations.  But alas, I ran out of time since I needed to go pick up my friend’s daughter and take her back home, and then run to Jess’s place for dinner.

I added this shot above not just to display my masterful tape job, but also if you look on the top right of the prop hub you’ll see a bit of a delam.  The bottom left looks about the same.  There was a minor one on the top left that I hit with some epoxy and peel plied it, then tape.  This was after I sent these pics to Gary Hertzler, in requesting his advice on how to remedy these delams.  He responded that I should simply use epoxy under the delam (as pretty much any other delam) and keep it closed up during cure.

So I loaded up my delam/air bubble syringe with white vinegar and once cleaned out, I’ll attack these delams after I get the prop spinner configured.

I finally got a decent chunk of stuff done today, and of course getting a bit of progress under my belt is motivating in getting this bird done!

That being said, my first quick task was to create a plan for dealing with the gaps I have in the front corners of the top cowling where the cowling itself fails to cover the gap between the wing edge and the cowling mounting/CAMLOC flange of the CS spar: the approximate 2.5″ along the outboard edge just aft of the corner, again on each side.  Now, I could fill this gap line with RTV once the wings are on the bird, but I want a more permanent seal and a better look than that.  Yes, this task is a bit cosmetic in nature here, but it also clearly concerns minimizing the loss of any engine cooling air.

Thus, my plan is to take away a bit of the cowl mounting flange and add that flange piece to the wing edge, extending the wing flange forward along that edge, but only around 0.3-0.4″ in width.  A bit hard to explain, but more to come on this.

On the oil check door configuration, I realized that it was NOT just the aft top cowl attach point that needed repositioned, but also the forward one as well (bottom of pic).  So I marked it up and took it outside to cut it out for resetting…

which I did here.

I then installed the top cowl oil check door without the hinge spring, taped the door tightly in place, and then set the door-securing wire in place.  I then added a dab of grease in the forward brass wire capture tube and slid it into place before adding flox all around it.

I then laid up 2 plies of carbon fiber over the reset oil check door wire-securing tube.  And peel plied the layup of course.

Before I mixed up the MGS 335 epoxy with fast hardener for all that going on above, I cut out 3 plies of BID to help fill in a right side gap on the front top cowling attach lip on the D-deck.  After laying that up I peel plied it as well.

I then carefully mounted my Hertzler Silver Bullet prop onto the bird to not only allow for cutting and installing the prop spinner, but to also ensure I had it configured with the blades at the 12/6 o’clock positions with the #1 cylinder at TDC.

My ignorance of how exactly to find TDC for the #1 cylinder came to light when I lined up the “TC1” line on the AFT side of the flywheel with the engine case split line.  “Uh, Houston we have a problem!” and “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K!” both came to mind since looking through the top spark plug hole proved that the #1 cylinder was anything BUT at TDC.

After some research I discovered by way of my RV friends on the VANs forum that I was in fact looking for the “TC1” line on the FRONT side of the flywheel, which brought the prop blades to exactly 12/6 o’clock with the #1 cylinder at TDC . . .

And put the AFT side flywheel “TC1” mark near the starter, which is what that mark is used for… ok, now we’re cooking with real butter!

Although the prop will be installed temporarily for only a bit, I also took the opportunity to check the blade alignment as is spelled out in the plans.  With blade #1 down, I made a mark on some green painters tape just below it, then rotated blade #1 up and blade #2 down in position.  Here is the result: well within the 1/16″ difference allowed by the Long-EZ engine plans.

Since I used fast hardener, I pulled the peel ply off to check the forward wire-securing tube for the top cowl oil check door.

I also pulled the peel ply, razor-trimmed the cured overhanging BID and re-drilled the CAMLOC hole for the right side D-deck top cowl mounting flange.

I would say tomorrow I’ll get back on the top cowl and prop, but I’m leaving tomorrow morning for a quick overnight trip to Wilmington, NC for a little R&R with Jess.  I’ll be back Sunday midday and will get back to work then.

The last couple of days have turned into pure assessment and planning days… not so much that I had planned to do so, but a friend of mine had surgery on her foot and I’ve been playing chauffeur to her teenage daughter (who I’ve known for the majority of her life).  That’s affected my build schedule significantly over the past week.

I finally got a few good undisturbed hours out in the shop, where I started sanding down the layups I just did on the front top cowl CAMLOC tabs.  An unintended consequence of adding thickness to those tabs is driving the aft end of the cowl downward much more significantly than I would have thought.  My gap now between aft cowl edge and the prop spinner flow guide (“lampshade”) went from about 0.36″ to about 0.295″, in 3 distinct spots: 12:00 (TDC), 9:30 (L), and 2:30 (R) clock positions.  5/16″ is my minimum allowable clearance between prop spinner and cowling.

I’m assessing the mitigation of that gap, but will wait until I get the remainder of the top cowl front interface with the D-deck dialed in to take any further action.  I have a couple of tricks still left in my bag to deal with it.  In the meantime, as I often do, I’ll probably go ahead, accept the risk and install the prop… since I’ve come this far on getting that prop spinner worked into the mix of my cowling configuration, and as far as I’m concerned, the damn thing is getting installed on this bird!

So the top cowl went on and off a number of times.  I’ll note that there is just a hair more of finagling to get it on now since I finalized the wing positioning (a good while back) with extra washers on the left side.  I may drill out a couple of stationary CAMLOC receptacles to replace them with floating ones to see if that eases the finagling of the top cowl going on: the culprits being the 3 CAMLOCs along the lower left front edge.

So I’ve been slowly working my elevations between D-deck and top cowl front lip, and I finally removed a high point that I had identified and marked long ago (the hash lines).

I grabbed my Dremel tool and mini-sanding drum and went to town on the offending protrusion, then a good bit of elbow grease with a 32-grit sanding block.  Now along this this 3″ section the interface between cowl and D-deck are at the same elevation.

Then another few rounds of top cowl on & off to assess the oil level check door fit into and onto the top cowl.  I removed a small bit of baffle seal material that was getting in the way of the oil check door hinge and finally went a few rounds of bending the hinge on the underside of the door using 2 big channel lock pliers and stir sticks to protect the door & hinge surfaces.

I also secured the door with my “remote” opening wire to see how the elevation looks, and concluded that the aft most attach point on the inside of the cowl must be removed and reattached to get the door to sit more tightly against the inner flange.  The area I’m discussing is the on the left side in the pic below.

Now, although I bent the hinge where it attaches to the underside of the door, it only really affected the outer edges (aka front and aft side… since it opens inboard) of the hinge.  The middle is still relatively flat.  With the hinge attach point being a good inch from the edge (note rivets), this results in the front and aft inboard corners still protruding out rather straight… while the top cowling surface curves a good bit in this area (right side in pic below).

My plan is to simply add plies of carbon fiber to the underside of these corners to “fill the gap” between corner and cowling, and then simply sand down the tops of the corners to match the top cowl surface.  I’ll end my discussion by noting that this is a result of attaching a flat hinge (~5″ long) to two different interfacing surfaces (cowl & door) on a compound curved surface.  So I’m dealing with it!

Yes, with my refined plans in hand I will get to it… tomorrow.

Pressing forward.

Ok, again, a lot of smallish tasks getting knocked out over the last couple of days.

First off, I measured the gap between the top centerline CAMLOC position on the front edge of the top cowl with the D-deck to be about 0.085″ thick.  When I pulled the top cowling off to work the top centerline CAMLOC attach flange thickening, I forgot that the cowl hadn’t been off since I created the aft cowl stiffener.

So I pulled the peel ply and cleaned up a couple rough spots on the layup.

Here’s a closer look at the cured top cowl aft stiffener.

My hypothesis on the D-deck CAMLOC flange for the top cowling is that somewhere during the cure cycle (way back when) it drooped a bit from about the 10:30-2:00 o’clock positions, considering I have a gap between the flange and the 5 ply perimeter layup (see pic below this one).

The resulting gap, as I mentioned above, between the top centerline CAMLOC mounting hole and the inside surface of the top cowling is around 0.085″.  To fill in all but 2 plies of BID worth, I’m using a small patch of 1/16″ (0.063″) G10, with the front edge beveled to slide forward into that D-deck-CAMLOC flange gap… as seen below.

After getting the G10 filler piece drilled (1/2″ hole), sanded and prepped, I then floxed it into place.  I used a taped 1/2″ OD tube and a clamp to keep the G10 firmly in place during cure. Now, if you look in front (left in pic) of the added G10 piece, you can see the light area where I first packed in flox into the separated layers of glass.

And another shot of all that, after the flox cured and the G10 pad was secured in place.

After sanding and prepping the cured, in-place G10, I then added a micro fillet around the G10 filler piece (micro for weight) and laid up 2 plies of BID.  I then peel plied the BID.

Obviously this pic is a bit later after the peel ply was pulled and the edges razor trimmed.

I started out Day 2 with a similar operation, only using stepped, pyramiding 3 plies of BID to fill in the area above the top left CAMLOC on the D-deck and peel plied the layup (pic 1).  I used MGS 335 with fast hardener on these filler layups, so a few hours later I pulled the peel ply and razor trimmed the layup (pic 2).

After the layup above, I then took the final half of the wheel pants outside and sanded it in prep for micro and final finishing.  Yes, this is lower priority, low hanging fruit stuff, but I want some of these small tasks that take 30 minutes or less off the to-do list to knock it down a bit.  It’s part of my mental game to stay motivated I guess.

I combined these pics below although I started the task yesterday by applying the first round of insulation to the fuel injection spider stainless steel distribution lines that go to each cylinder.

Today I finished the task with the second, final outer insulation layer on the stainless steel fuel distribution lines. Technically, the task will be officially finished after I receive some Tefzel zip-ties that I ordered from Stein Air, albeit the hard part is definitely over (this was not just a simple, quick feat of adding these insulating sleeves).

As per Cozy builder/driver Buly, he used -4 fire sleeve on his topside fuel injection distribution lines to keep them from heating up too much when needing to do a hot start (which is the main risk of having the fuel injection spider lines on the top of the motor in our cooling configuration).

Again, I’m using a double-layered approach using insulating sleeves from McMaster-Carr (see pic below).  The first layer is heat-reflective wrap around sleeving, “made of aluminum with a fiberglass liner [which] reflects heat away from contents and withstands temperatures up to 390° F to protect against internal and external heat sources. It resists chemicals and fluids. The slit along the entire length permanently seals with an adhesive strip. It meets ASTM D350 requirements for self-extinguishing material.”  The outer, more durable layer is a heat-reflective slit corrugated sleeving that “reflects heat away from contents and withstands temperatures up to 300° F to protect against internal and external sources of heat.”  Moreover, I’m securing these sleeves in place with Tefzel zip-ties, which are quite capable of handling engine compartment temperatures.

I finished the evening out by making a video with a new (to me) but a little older (like me!) Akaso action camera that I nabbed for pretty darn cheap off of Ebay.  I figured I would put it to the test by using this tiny camera to record this video on my current gas cap safety lanyard effort.  Admittedly, the internal mic on this video camera isn’t that great, but after editing & processing it’s passible.

I’m getting close to finishing up a couple more key tasks, getting the shop cleaned and organized, and then a big project update video before I press forward with my top side micro finishing of the bird.

Moving forward!

Yep, my prevailing trend of not getting nearly as much done as I want to in the shop has continued over the past couple of days.

I did get a good 45 minutes of sanding on the wheel pants in, with 3 of the 4 halves ready for micro-finishing (no pic of those).

I also continued on with my sideline tasks before I get back onto the upper cowling final tweaks I need to do (more on that in a bit).

I pulled the prop spinner side gap filler pieces blank off the spinner, pulled the peel ply and cleaned up the edges.  Now when it comes time to create the filler pieces, I’ll have the blank ready to create those with.

In addition, I pulled the GIB lower seat hole cover off its layup board, measured out 8.5″ diameter and cut that before sanding the edges smooth.

I then did a quick check of it in place, which it fit a treat… Voila!  I’ll add a few spots of Velcro around the perimeter to attach it and then call it done and good.

I did note that the squirrels attacked yet another light.  They are quite clever in gnawing away the cord with very little left to splice back onto.  I disassembled the light end, pulled some more cord out so I had some wire to work with, and in about 15 minutes I had the 2 inop lights back up and running.

I also spent a good little bit of time using the Dremel tool and files to trim and clean up the edges of the gas cap tether securing tabs.  Again, these are 0.036″ thick 316 stainless steel.  After cleaning them up, I then bent the tabs 90° in prep for mounting them to the bottom of the gas caps, respectively.

I also spent some time determining my filler and layup plan for the top dead center CAMLOC position on the top cowling, since the current gap (0.085″) between CAMLOC tab and top cowling results in the cowling getting pulled down too much and the outer edges bulging a bit.

My sequence in dialing in the top cowling was to get the aft stiffener in place first, then work each minor issue from there.  This will be the first of a few final alignment tweaks between cowling and its fuselage-side mounting flanges.

Due to Jess’s busy schedule, and some medical stuff going on with her grandmother, I wanted to treat her to a nice dinner tonight… so the top cowl top position will get worked tomorrow.

Still inching forward!

With the help of my buddy Dave Berenholtz, today I started off with knocking out a carbon fiber layup to create the side filler pieces that cover the gap that is created when notching the prop spinner to allow it to be mounted over the prop.  Late last year Dave was very gracious in sharing the dimensions of his side filler pieces to give me a good starting point.

I padded his dimensions a bit just in case, and then today got busy making up one solid carbon fiber layup —using the taped prop spinner as the mold— that I’ll cut in half when it’s time to make up the side filler pieces.

To ensure the plies of carbon fiber were wetted out sufficiently, I prepregged the first 8 plies in plastic in 2-ply layups before wetting them out (I used Pro-Set epoxy here).

After applying a layer of peel ply first on the taped-up spinner, I then laid up the four 2-ply CF patches for a total of 8 plies thick.  You can see the final, top ply is the same hex-pattern CF as the spinner….

Which I laid up next.  With the final 9th ply of CF laid up (pic 1), I then peel plied the layup (pic 2) and left it to cure.

A while back while rooting around in the back seat I measured the lower hole in the GIB seatback with the idea to create a rigid cover for that hole to help keep the seat cushion from sinking into the hole.  I plan on doing the same with the CS spar access hole, which is probably more critical than this lower hole.

Regardless, I had already ID’d at least one of the pieces of carbon fiber that I was going to use for this layup, and simply set it aside for a “rainy day.”  Well, since I had a decent little bit of epoxy left over from the above spinner side piece layup, I decided to knock out this GIB lower seat hole cover layup as well.

It consists of 2 plies of CF, a smaller diameter inner ply of Lantor Soric, and then the final top ply of CF (which will actually face aft).  I’ll note that I grabbed this pic just before I published this post, after I pulled the peel ply off from around the perimeter.

Before it got dark I was also able to get another half hour of sanding in outside on the RAM air scoop.  I’ve knocked off a good bit of paint, but will hit it one more time here soon to get more of the paint off the hell hole cover and flange areas.

Another quick task I completed was grabbing a tie-down strap and bringing in a couple 45-pound weights to attach to the nose tie down point in the taxi light well.  If you look closely there are two large dumbbells peaking out of the top of the nose, which I took out immediately after grabbing this shot.  And yes, the big 45-pound weights are resting on the ground so there is no actual strain on the nose unless it decides to move upward any distance.

Tomorrow I plan on getting back onto some upper cowling tasks and get those knocked out while the engine is still installed.

The squirrel war that is…

Case in point, besides one of the light wires that I just spliced back together being re-gnawed through, my other morning greeting was just off to the side of my glass cutting table, where I found an entire ceiling light assembly on the floor.  Note the sharply cut cord.  Crazy.

So I spent another hour plus reinstalling this light and working on getting rid of squirrel nests, plus ensuring the plane was safe from any potential downed light fixtures.

Moving on… I tried my hand using the Dremel tool to create a gas cap tethering tab.  The making of the tab went well enough, it was drilling the hole in the narrow strip that went slightly awry as it slid off-center.  This is stainless steel after all.

I decided I would need to reverse my tab manufacturing process by drilling the holes first, which in my mind meant I might as well machine these darn things.  I then modeled up a new tweaked version of the gas cap tether tab and 3D printed it out to check size and configuration.

I then machined the gas cap tether tabs out of some leftover scrap 0.036″ thick 316 stainless steel from the exhaust pipe brackets.  Here they are, with some final cleanup left to do.

I then finally pulled the heat blanket and heat lamps off the top cowling and cured aft stiffener.

I also pulled the hot glued wood spacers and to my surprised delight, the top cowling didn’t move a hair!

Yes, the gap is a bit tighter than I want it to be, and I’m invoking both Wayne Blackler and the Long-EZ plans for the minimum gap: 5/16″ (0.3125″) per Wayne and 0.4″ per plans.  I’m in the middle.  Regardless, I do have a decent gap that I can work with and tweak if I have to… thus I’m calling this task complete and pressing forward!

Over the last couple of days I’ve been checking and resetting the pressure switch on the shop air compressor to get it to cut on as close 145 psi and off at 175 psi as possible.  There’s so much air in the tank that I’ve been letting the automatic moisture-removing valve cycle a bunch of times, which slowly knocks off a good 10 psi over a 24 hour period.  I then open a valve to drain the air to see when it kicks on and off.

Well, today I reset the adjustment screw rather aggressively (2 full turns) and got the darn thing to cut in at 137 psi and cut off at 167 psi… close enough.  I did a final install on the pressure switch cover and then manhandled the compressor to get it rotated and back onto the rubber pads and floor securing bolts.

I then put the big compressor closet access panel back into place and secured it with screws.  This task too is complete.

Pressing forward … one task at a time!