Slogging ‘er out!  Today I did the final sanding on the aft NG30 cover after the final application (hopefully) of Metal Glaze and epoxy wipes to clear up some minor blemishes & pin holes. I sanded down the cover, focused on dialing in the final surface prep for paint. Of course some of underlying filler broke through, but no worries since I hit it with a light colored primer.

I then applied 3 coats of white primer to lock in my surface prep work.  I’m sure there’s a good chance that I’ll have to do some more minor fills, and possibly even another coat of white primer, but as you can see it’s definitely looking more & more polished!

I did a bit more adminstrivia to verify the info I have on hand for my nose gear interfaces & integration with the electrical system.  With minor mods an inherent part of the process, it pays to take a half hour or so to make sure all my diagrams have been updated.

I then proceeded to finalize the wiring on the nose gear RCU P0 connector.  I then went the next step and prepped the main nose gear system power for connection to the E-Bus via a 10 Amp panel-mounted circuit breaker.

I then wired up the Emergency Gear Extend Switch that will be used in conjunction with the 1.2 Amp backup battery to get the gear down in case of an electrical system failure.

After finishing the actions above on the new nose gear system wiring, I took it down to the shop and installed the wiring harness, connectors, AEM box and RCU box into the plane. After double-checking (re-checking!) all the connections and pinouts, I fired up the new nose gear switch.  The gear actuator sprang alive and carried the gear to its fullest down (nose up) travel.  I then moved the gear switch to the up position (nose down) and I was met with only an audible click of the relay in the AEM box.  Hmmm . . .

So, I rechecked all my connections again.  Somehow I missed that I had inserted the big actuator power wires in the P0 connector in reverse… so I promptly fixed that issue.  I reran the gear to see if that fixed the issue and it did not, although it did give me another data point since my new issue was simply now reversed: I could get the gear to go up, but not down.  In addition, I was still met with just the audible click of a relay in the AEM box. I then removed the AEM box and the RCU box, took them upstairs and checked all the connections and circuit routes with a fine-tooth comb.  Nothing.

Thus, I end this evening in perplexed fashion trying to brainstorm on exactly what the issue could be.  Besides the reversed actuator wires that I quickly remedied, I can find nothing askew with the system…. so far.  I’ll work this tomorrow until get this thing going.

BTW, as you can tell, I did NOT get a chance to work on the taxi light extend/retract actuator system.