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.