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!

As I entered the shop this morning and turned on all the lights, I realized that the front of the shop was notably darker than before.  Now, I’ve had a few of my older fluorescent light bars give up the ghost (or just need new bulbs), but these lights were my “new” LED shop lights that I have daisy chained in a square pattern around an older fluorescent light bar, for the front and aft of each work bay.

Upon closer inspection I realized that this was part of a surreptitious squirrel operation, a continuation of my ongoing war with them.  I’m guessing now that ALL the ceiling insulation is gone, that they’re pissed and resorting to shenanigans as payback.

After more reconnaissance I discovered that not only did they gnaw through 4 light power cords, but also 3 of my 4 shop speaker wires as well.  And we’re not talking a single cut, these little bastards gnawed them all into smaller lengths… some only 1-2 feet long.

Well, I spent nearly an hour figuring out their terror campaign and fixing the wiring to the 4 front lights.  On 2 of the lights I left the cord dangling in midair, so it should prove harder to get access to gnaw through.  I’ll work the speaker wire a bit here and there, since I have at least one speaker for music.  Crazy.

My next op was to get the new pressure switch installed on my shop compressor.  Clearly when I built the closet for my shop compressor, I didn’t have in mind having to swap out a pressure switch.  In fact, in all my compressors that I’ve owned over the years I’ve never had to swap out a pressure switch.

To gain access to my compressor I have to take off a fairly thick hatch (to mitigate sound).  I then quickly realized that to have any chance of working on the pressure switch, which is on the left side looking in at the compressor, that I would need to unbolt 2 of the 3 legs and rotate the compressor as much counterclockwise in the closet that I could.

After a good 30 minutes of trying in vain to get the pressure switch out, I had to step back and evaluate how they assemble these compressors at the factory, because that thing was not coming out.  I realized that the entire manifold block had to come out, so I spent another half hour getting that thing unburdened by what was (ha!).  I then gave it a good cleaning.

A little interesting in sourcing this new pressure switch is that I could only find the exact replacement part number item for around $120.  That is a pressure switch that cuts on at 145 psi and cuts off at 175 psi… in theory, since my original one cut off a little over 150 psi.

During my research, I found one at Tractor Supply that cuts on at 125 psi and cuts off at 150 psi, but a comment by a user warned potential buyers that when he hooked his up it cut off around 170 psi: so test it first.  He found an adjustment screw and dialed it down.  Hmmm, if it was adjustable, and started high, then I could do the same thing in reverse.  And at half the cost, $60 was sounding much better than $120.

Well, enter our friends at Amazon.  They had the exact same unit as Tractor Supply for less than $40… sold!  Notice the faceplates above are exactly the same.  And the switch body is nearly identical except the new one has 3 extra ports, and the label is different.  Beyond that, they’re pretty much the same switch as far as I can tell.

Besides just wanting to use my shop compressor in normal fashion, I specifically wanted it back online to use during my machining ops.  Moreover, I’ll be micro-finishing the top fuselage, strakes, wings, etc. coming up here soon and I do not want to face that job without my magical “air file.”  So it was time to get this compressor back online.

I got the pressure switch installed and even though I turned the set screw to jack up the PSI kick in/out, it’s still around 150 psi.  It works though and tomorrow I’ll tweak the pressure cut in/out, reset the compressor in place, bolt it in and close up the compressor closet.

In the meantime, I ops tested it by machining the triangular gas cap securing tabs, that ensure if I for some reason forget to lock a gas cap closed that it doesn’t fly off into my prop.

Here’s a short video I made of machining those gas cap tabs.

And here are the machined tabs, if you’re not in the mood to watch the video!

I had a late dinner before knocking out my final task for the day: solder-splicing the alternator F-lead inside the hell hole.  I cut the wires to length, spliced them together using Bob Nuckoll’s method (extra wraps of wire)… sorry for the wire being the main unfocused thing in the pic.  My camera sucks!

I then soldered the wires together, covered the splice with red heat shrink and also heat shrank a label in place nearby the splice.  Now my alternator is officially wired to the front side of the plane!

And with that folks, I called it a night.

Today I got yet another task that’s long been on my list to do finally knocked out: the top cowl aft reinforcement stiffener.  Technically this is my second attempt at this, since the first reinforcement strip didn’t do I what I needed it to (which I had honestly kind of forgotten about since I set my mind on doing this new and improved version)… which with the spring back of the top cowling may be too much to ask for, but I want to try to maintain at least a 5/16″ gap between cowl and prop spinner flow guide.  It’d be a shame not to be able to use the prop spinner due to a lack of proper clearance.

Here’s another shot of my starting point, with the pour foam in place and completed last night.

I then got to work shaping the pour foam and knocking it down to about 3/8″ max height in the center, with each side beveled down to meet the cowl surface.

Here we have the final foam base of the top cowl aft cross stiffener shaped and vacuumed, ready for glass/carbon fiber, which you can see I’ve cut and is above the foam, awaiting layup.

Using Hi-temp HTR-212 resin, I then wet out the foam with micro (pic 1) before laying up the 2 plies of UNI (pic 2).

I added a strip of Lantor Soric material next (not seen), then 2 plies of carbon fiber just a bit wider than the all the rest of the plies, to secure the whole shmeal to the top cowl surface.

I then added peel ply, mainly focusing on the edge interfaces between carbon fiber plies and top cowl.

I installed the top cowl with all the CAMLOCs in place (no screw on each side) so that the top cowl would be in its final configuration during the aft cross stiffener cure.  You can see that I prepped the flow guide by hot gluing wood spacers to the surface and also clamping it to the flywheel to ensure that it’s secure during the ensuing 48 hour cure/post cure.

I then added a heat blanket on top of the cowling, just over the aft cross stiffener layup, and put a couple heat lamps underneath.  I then left it to cure… again, I’m planning on a good 48 cure to hopefully lock this top cowl position into place.

I’ll note that over the last couple of days I finally broke out the cheap toaster oven I bought late last year to allow me to heat up the wing leading edge 1/16″ plexiglass lens plates, that I bought from ACS pre-cut at 8″ x 8″ (on top of oven).

Late last year Nick Ugolini sent me his plaster of paris molds for the wing leading edge lights.  He also sent me nearly 100 pics and we had a long detailed conversation on how to create the embedded wing leading edge lights.

After looking over my personal notes, my notes on the call with Nick and some Internet research/videos, I got to work making some lenses.  The lens on the far left (below) is one that Nick sent with the forms.  The #3 smaller 5″ x 8″ lens is actually the second one I tried, the 3″ strip that I had cut off with the Fein saw being the first test piece.  It came out clear as well, and the smaller one came out pretty good too… but it wasn’t centered perfectly so it might not work for an actual final lens.

Since the corners tend to curl up a bit, I decided to leave the lenses at the 8″ x 8″ dimension that I got them from ACS.  I tried to let it heat just about 30 seconds longer to see if I could get the corners to lay down better, and lens #4 on the far right is what I got… air bubbles in the final outcome.  30 seconds less heating time and slightly curved corners is what I got on my final attempt for this go around, lens #2, second from left.

I then discovered one more final issue that really drove a decision point for me.  Although I had each lens perfectly conformed to the lens mold that Nick sent me, I noticed that the mold is significantly fatter on the bottom curve than my wing (by about 0.2″).  Nick had also sent me a piece of a wing leading edge that was cut out for making the lens light pocket, and it didn’t match my resulting lenses from the mold either.  It actually matched pretty darn close to my wing (which I would guess it should).  Hmmm?

Since the lens configuration and shape drives the exact position of the light on the leading edge, I realized that I was going to have to create the lenses in situ on each wing.  And since the top of my wings are not yet finished, I then subsequently made the call to re-sequence this task until after the wings are micro finished, epoxy wiped and sanded to final shape (but pre-paint).

Inching forward!

I started out today testing some new hydraulic crimper hex lug dies I picked up off of Ebay (technically I started out this morning with about 4 hours of long overdue mowing and yard work!).  The dies I have that came with with my hydraulic crimper have a slight gap at the edges which results in a flat “wing” on each side when I use them.  I noticed the chrome colored dies don’t seem to do that, so I took a chance on these.  And I’m glad I did.

Here I’ve terminated the alternator’s B-lead connector that attaches to the firewall-mounted BlueSea pass-thru (pic 1).  I then hit the (pre-added) red heat shrink with the heat gun to finish up the connector install (pic 2).

I then did a test install on the firewall pass-thru.  Yes, I also pre-added the white protective boot as well, although it’s looking a little rumpled here.

While I still had some daylight in the late afternoon, I took the nose hatch door and the RAM air scoop outside to knock off the old 2-part polyurethane blue boat paint in prep for some lighter (in weight) spray on paint.  Here we have the nose hatch door before (pic 1) and after (pic 2) sanding.  Yep, I have some weird low spots in there, but to be fair, I haven’t hand sanded it yet with a board.

I started losing daylight and my sandpaper was losing its grit, so I only got about half the RAM air scoop sanded.  I plan to get back to it in another few days.

I then got to work on the top cowl aft stiffener, which I marked my previous chicken scratching lines with tape (pic 1), then built the cardboard dam using the tape as a guide (pic 2).

Another shot of the finished cardboard pour foam dam.

I guess I didn’t get a shot of the pour foam in the dam, since I was in kind of hurry to get out of the shop to grab a late dinner with Jess.

But here is the pour foam after I removed the dam.

Tomorrow I’ll shape the foam and layup the reinforcement UNI, Lantor Soric and carbon fiber plies.

I had a ton of errands and chores to do today, so I was quite late getting out to the shop. That being said, I was however able to accomplish my primary goal of the day: getting the carbon fiber air induction tube mounted.

That was only possible by the delivery of this guy below (and a few more): an 18-8 stainless steel press-fit threaded standoff that I ordered from McMaster-Carr.

First off… yes, I had very much planned on making these on my own lathe, but it’s still not 100% operational in regards to CNC right now.  So I cheated and bought them as I was placing an order for other stuff.

Also, the “threaded” part of the description is not something I preferred.

So I changed that by chucking these standoffs up in the lathe and drilling out the threads.

So why exactly did I drill out the threads on these stainless steel stand-offs? (pic 1).  Because I needed to be able to seat the bolts down all the way into the standoffs, since the head-drilled bolts that I’m using all have an unthreaded shank which prevents that seating.  As you can see in pic 2, removing the threads from the standoff eliminates my bolt-seating issue.

To press-fit the standoffs into the carbon fiber air induction tube mounting flange, I drilled the 1/4″ holes out 3/8″.  I then mounted the air induction tube into place on the fuel injection servo and during the dry run fitting of each standoff, one by one, tightened each bolt to press-fit the standoff into the air induction tube flange.

Here we have all the stainless steel press-fit standoffs in place on the air induction tube mounting flange.

I then mounted the carbon fiber air induction tube by installing the mounting bolts through each press-fit standoff (and flange insert), then torqueing the bolts to 96 in-lbs before safety-wiring the pair on each side.  I will note that just as I did on the fuel injection servo mounting, I applied a very thin layer of gasket RTV to the gasket and let that tack up before installing it.

With my chores out of the way I’m hoping to get quite a bit more done tomorrow.

Pressing forward!

Today was all about knocking out more tidbit items on the engine install.  I started off by finishing up the crankcase vent tube install with some leftover tasks that I overlooked last night, with my declarative statement that I had finished said task: I first safety wired the forward 2 hose clamp screws to prevent them from loosening up.  In addition, I swapped the standard nut on the black rubber crankcase vent hose Adel clamp to an AC grade nut with washer, thus completing the securement of the Adel clamp and, in turn, the black rubber crankcase vent hose.

The next task on my list was installing a drain that pokes out of the bottom skin of the aircraft to allow nasty stuff out if and when called for… the source being either from the sniffle valve OR the mechanical fuel pump overflow.  Clearly these are sharing the same exit drain out of the aircraft, more shown on that below.

But first I had a slight configuration issue in that the bottom corner edge of the throttle cable bracket (screwdriver as pointer below) was uncomfortably close to the sniffle valve drain tube.  A decent amount of vibration could potentially see the bracket corner gnawing a hole into the tubing, so I needed to remedy that situation.

I did so by removing the Adel clamp, taking the Dremel tool and then some files to the corner to cut it down and round it over, and then reinstalled the Adel clamp on the outboard side of the throttle cable bracket/bracket.  This provided yet even a bit more clearance betwixt tube and bracket corner.

I determined how I wanted the separate drain tubes from the sniffle valve (lower left side) and mechanical fuel pump (upper right side) configured.  I then cut the drain tubes to length and attached them to a brass “Y” fitting.  I’ll note that I’ll test the separate flows of these drain tubes to ensure there’s no negative issues of running 2 tubes into one exit drain.

After determining where I wanted the external drain tube to poke through the bottom skin, I taped the external surface and then drilled a small pilot hole from the inside out.  I then drilled a 1/4″ hole up into the engine compartment (just aft of the firewall) using the small pilot hole as a guide (sorry for the pics… my camera was being a PITA).

Here’s the 1/4″ hole drilled into the external bottom skin.

I then cut a length of 1/4″ aluminum tubing, bent it slightly for clearance with the SCAT tubing, prepped it, and then added wet micro to the external surface as I slid it up into position.  I added a few extra drops of epoxy to the tiny bit of wet micro I had in the cup and threw in a good bit of flox, but still wanted it fairly wet for strength…

I then dabbed the wet flox around the base of the tube on the inside.

Before I mixed up the epoxy (Pro-Set) I cut out 3 small patches of carbon fiber to finalize the divot fills on the left side bottom cowling (2 plies top, 1 bottom).  After I laid up the CF patches I of course peel plied the layups.  Again, this is the final divot filling or patch action that I plan on doing on the bottom cowling.

Tomorrow I’ll most likely move onto the upper cowling and work to get that completely dialed in and ready for micro and paint.