You’ll see at the end of this post that I decided to pull all the existing nose gear wiring out of the nose to allow me to reconfigure the P1 and P2 connectors with the new Marc Zeitlin designed (along with my re-added backup battery) nose gear wiring scheme.

But first . . .

Today I drilled the last hole in the sidewall for what I’m calling “Phase I” of routing the big battery cables from the nose battery compartment to the instrument panel.  Again, I’m working everything furiously from the instrument panel forward to get everything I can position, mounted & worked for the upcoming closing up & glassing of the nose.  Later I’ll continue to route these big battery cables along the right fuselage sidewall to the firewall.

I placed this new big battery cable Adel clamp sidewall hardpoint about equidistant from the existing Adel clamp hardpoint I mounted in the bottom right access hole on the panel for the control stick cable (lower right of the pic below) and the new Adel clamp I just mounted a little aft of F22.

For this Adel clamp hardpoint I chose a RivNut threaded insert and prepped it.

Since I like to consolidate my epoxy & glassing endeavors, I figured I would layup some reinforcement plies of glass on the nose-mounted tool box to allow me to mount a latch on the lid and body of the tool box.  I have a couple of styles of Dzus cowling latches, and decided on the most diminutive style of the ones I have on hand to allow better clearance of opening the tool box with the least chance of scraping knuckles on the main battery, which resides immediately forward of the tool box.

After figuring out my tool box latch, I decided to use 2 plies of BID for reinforcement on the tool box.  For a bit more oomph, in addition to the 2 plies of BID, I cut some latch reinforcement plates out some of 0.5mm aluminum that I still have left over from Germany. Once I cut the reinforcement plates (shown below) I could then determine the size of my BID plies.  I cut the BID plies, and per my norm I put them in plastic to prepreg them.  I then whipped some epoxy and wetted out the 2 sets of 2-ply BID in the prepreg setups.

Here’s a shot of the 2 sets of 2-ply pre-pregged BID and the RivNut Adel clamp threaded insert hardpoint that will get floxed into the sidewall.

I went ahead ahead and floxed the RivNut into the hole and clamped a 1×2 in place to keep it firmly pressed against the sidewall.

Then, using the flox I had just mixed for the Adel clamp RivNut, I floxed the aluminum latch reinforcement plate to the INSIDE of the tool box (I previously sanded the inside face of the tool box and the outside edge of the lid).

Since there’s not much clearance between the inside of the lid and the outside of the tool box body, I then floxed the lid aluminum latch reinforcement plate to the OUTSIDE of the lid flange.

I then laid up the 2 plies of pre-pregged BID inside the tool box onto the aluminum latch reinforcement plate.

And did the same for the lid.  These layups were just a tad squirrelly in that for some reason the reinforcement plates really wanted to slide off their marks when I applied the glass.  My thinking is that my flox wasn’t thick or sticky enough to keep them in place, since I used a bit more wet flox early on as I was mixing it up.  I got them set in the end, but with a bit more fiddling than I would have preferred.

I then added peel ply to inside tool box reinforcement layup.

And the lid reinforcement layup.

Jumping ahead a number of hours, here’s the inside tool box latch reinforcement layup after I pulled the peel ply.

You can see, with the glass so clear it was fairly EZ to work the glass on the inside of the box while looking at what I was doing from the outside of the box.  This shot is after the reinforcement layup had cured.

I pulled the peel ply on the tool box latch lid reinforcement layup and then did some much needed sanding on the lid.

Also jumping ahead quite a few hours, this is the big battery cables’ Adel clamp hardpoint after the flox cured.  I cleaned up the flox from around the RivNut face.

The floxed RivNut was definitely in the sidewall securely, so I mounted the Adel clamp for that hardpoint, and also another big cable Adel clamp to the pre-existing hardpoint that I had in place for the control stick cable.  With this latest hardpoint install, that completes my “Phase 1” routing goal of getting these big battery cables from the nose battery compartment to the instrument panel.  Another item off the list!

On to the taxi light cover . . . After redrilling the 4 holes in the lower taxi light cover to allow me to mount the cover with two 4-40 screws each side, I then spent a good 45 minutes trimming the existing glass and foam in the nose to allow the taxi light to be stowed into the nose side position when it was in its retracted state.

Here’s a good approximation of what the taxi light will look like when it’s deployed with the light turned on.  Remember, the taxi light extension and light coming on all happens with the push of one button on my control stick.

Getting the taxi light nestled back into the nose took a fair bit of trial & error to figure out exactly where the light was snagging on the foam and glass, but after 5-6 rounds of cutting & trimming I was able to get the taxi light –with cover– to seat properly in the hole.

Here’s a shot of what the taxi light looks from the outside.  There will need to be a bit of fancy micro finishing work to clean all this up for sure, but I think its well worth it!

My second-to-the-last act of the evening was to pull all the existing nose gear wiring & connectors off of the NG30 cover to allow me to re-use the P1 & P2 connectors for the new nose gear wiring system.  In addition, before I build & glass the top of the nose, I want to finish & paint both NG30 covers.

Here’s a shot of the bare NG30 cover from the right side.

My last official act of the evening (no pics… yet) was I spent a good hour sorting, selecting, and terminating wires to finish the initial P1 connector wiring for the new nose gear wiring.

And with that, I called it a night…

Today I finished mounting all the individual AEM box components and getting it wired up.  I was ONE 4-40 screw short to mount the 12V-5V converter in place, so I had to get some hardware at my local hardware store (they have virtually everything!).

Before I left I gooped up both relays with E6000 glue and set them in their respective places inside the box.  I then cut a piece of G10 Garolite as a spacer to just fit with very slight pressure against each relay and then slopped on some E6000 all around it as well. With the relays glued to the AEM box on two sides, and a spacer/support installed to keep the bigger relay (note that it’s mounted on the top inside of the box) from vibrating loose and causing issues, I think my non-screw-mounted components will be nice and secure.

BTW, if you’ve never used E6000 adhesive, you’ll understand why I wanted to apply it–out on my deck– and then leave for a few hours…. this stuff STINKS!!!!  [You may also note by all the chicken scratches inside the upper right corner that I trimmed the standoffs on the top side down by about 0.050″ to get the top airspeed switch pitot tube barb centered in the sidewall hole].

Upon returning from my hardware supply run, and still out on my deck for fresh air, I mounted the 2 airspeed switches into the AEM box.  The top airspeed switch (AS004) mounts with 4x 3-48 CS screws while the bottom (AS005) mounts with a 2x 4-40 CS screws.

Below is a look at the airspeed switch pitot tube barbs sticking through their respective access holes on the left side of the AEM box.  It doesn’t take a lot of pressure to align these barbs, so I tweaked the one on the left a bit after this pic was snapped.

Later in the evening, after a good amount of curing for the E6000 glue (read: way less stink!) I got around to cutting, stripping & terminating the wires with D-Sub pins.  For some reason I had my wiring diagram D-Sub numbers inverted from top to bottom, so I spent a good 15 minutes straightening that out.  I then started on the wires that terminated into the aft row of the 15-pin D-Sub connector (deeper into the box).

After I performed continuity checks on all my freshly terminated wires, I then mounted them into the appropriate positions on the D-Sub connector.

I then repeated the process by cutting and terminating those wires that are positioned on the forward side of the D-Sub connector (closest to the lid) with D-Sub pins.

I mounted the last/forward row of terminated wires into the D-Sub connector, and then zip tied the wires to secure them from any vibration damage, wearing or other issues.

Here’s a shot of the right side D-Sub connector end showing all the installed wires with terminated D-Sub pins.

Luckily it was a nice warm evening, because I then once again took the AEM box out onto the deck to goop up a few of the more sensitive connections with E6000, basically using it as potting material.

While the E6000 was curing I took the lid and colored the raised lettering with a very high tech coloring system…. sometimes known as a “Sharpie!”  ha!

A few hours later I collected up the box and removed some the ‘spider webs’ that are typically when using this type of glue.  I then mounted the lid with 4x #4 CS screws.

Here’s a clear shot of each end of the box: the J9 15-pin D-Sub connector on the right side, and the 2 pitot barbs poking out of their respective holes for the airspeed switches on the left side.

Barring any issues that may arise when I perform my ops function checks, this completes the construction of the Nose Gear AEM box.  I of course still have to wire up the other “B” side of the J9 connector.

Today I removed the swingdown taxi light assembly from the fuselage to work on it in preparation for the final taxi light system install.  The first order of business was a long overdue trim of all extraneous metal to get this thing lightened up a bit.  I marked the areas to be trimmed in brown Sharpie, as you can see below on the right side . . .

and the left.

Here’s a not-so-great shot of it after I trimmed off the excess metal areas.  I also drilled the hole in the aft upright arm a little bigger as well.  In all, I trimmed well over 25% of the weight off of this taxi light assembly.

I then drilled and tapped the lower side taxi light bulb frame for two 4-40 screws on each side, to eventually use to keep the taxi light cover mounted.

After reinserting the bulb, I then cut out some cardboard pieces and taped them to the taxi light frame for a mold for the taxi light cover.

I then prepped 1 ply of BID, 1 ply of UNI (because I have a ton of spare UNI) and 1 ply of carbon fiber in a prepreg setup to layup on the taxi light cover.  Well, using prepreg here didn’t work so well, since I didn’t allow enough flex with 3 plies for the sharp corners. Worse yet, the CF started splitting at the tight corners and the whole layup quickly devolved towards sheer calamity.

I ended up pulling the entire layup off the taxi light cover, cutting it into about 5 manageable pieces, and then inverting it so the areas of separated carbon fiber were on the inside of the layup.  After placing the disparate pieces of glass in place, I wrapped the whole thing with Saran (plastic) wrap and taped the hell out of all of it.  I figured it would require a fair amount of subsequent work, but I wasn’t just about to through all that glass away.

Here’s another shot of my taped “layup from hell!”

On a brighter note, here’s a shot of how my first added Adel Clamp for the big power cables traversing the length of the fuselage worked out.  I’ll add a subsequent one the next time I whip up some epoxy.

For tonight, I’ll just let the taxi light cover cure and deal with the mystery tomorrow.

Today I finished getting the Dynon intercom installed into the intercom bracket that I just glassed to the sidewall.

I hate to admit it, but with the curve of the sidewall that I failed to take well enough into account, I had to move the forward two K1000-6 nutplates inboard just a hair to get the intercom to mount correctly.  The front nutplates were off a bit, especially in conjunction with the aft 2 nutplates.

The lower body of the intercom just barely kisses the sidewall on the forward side, which is close to perfect as far as what I was looking for on the angle of the intercom.  I’ll stick a piece of double-side sticky tape foam at that corner and it will keep everything nice and tight, with a little separation between the intercom corner and sidewall.  In addition, in the pic below you can see that the stick is all the way left that it can go before the bottom of the control stick bracket hits the sidewall.  Sitting in the airplane this action would most likely be near impossible to accomplish at this severe angle of bank since the pilot’s leg would be in the way (at least mine would be!).  Regardless, my point is that even with the control stick maxed out to the left, there is still clearance between the lower control tube and the lower intercom box.

Moving on.  Later this evening I figured out my big power cable reroute which is essentially a Bell Curve looking deal that goes up & over my right rudder pedal travel path.  After having to move the rudder pedals forward, and having skooched them in a bit close to the sidewalls, I could no longer run the big power cables along side the right rudder pedal as I had planned for originally.  The fit was very tight before, but after moving the pedals forward it just simply wasn’t going to work.

Rerouting the big power cables worked out for the best anyway though, considering if I had gone with my original plan I might not have known how tight the rudder pedal and big cable clearance situation was until I tried to adjust the rudder pedals forward for a taller pilot (or if I hit another growth spurt… ha!)

Thus, the process of rerouting the big power cables is the same as eating an elephant: I’m doing it one bite at a time!  Tonight I drilled the first new hole in the nose sidewall and prepped it for inserting a Rivnut.

I then prepped the Rivnut by taping up both ends, and then floxed it into the hole.

I’ll let this Rivnut cure in place, then mount the cable with an Adel clamp in the Rivnut before figuring out exactly where the next Adel clamp needs to go.  I’ll then flox in the next Adel clamp hardpoint, let it cure, and repeat the process until I get the big power cables over & around the right rudder pedal and to the instrument panel . . . at a minimum.