Hi Folks,

The electrical system and instrument panel install is virtually complete.  That being said, I have 3 components currently out for repair: the Garmin GNS-480, Trio autopilot, and Bendix-King AV8OR handheld GPS. 

I recently finished the final installation of the rudders, and just finished the install of the elevators onto the canard.  Next up is the final weight and balance of the ailerons before their final installation onto the wings.

Also on the upcoming to-do list is the final canopy install… and getting the rudder/brake pedals configured and installed, along with the brake lines, master cylinders and reservoirs plumbed. 

Rocking on!

After dropping off a few tidbits at the hangar, I then went home to my shop and assessed my plan for the aileron weight and balance.

Since there was quite a bit of orange peel still remaining on the left aileron and some significant smatterings on the right aileron, my thought was that I was simply going to sand off all the paint —starting on the bottoms first— assess the weight, and then figure out the top sides after that.

All in all, I’m really only about an ounce over on each elevator that is currently prohibiting me from not violating the plans ‘golden rule’ of only adding 0.3 lbs to get my ailerons back to good in the balancing department.

I then took a break and headed into town to run some errands and also visit my paint guy to see if he knew any independent painters that may be able to shoot a light coat of paint on each side of the ailerons in a paint booth (this last part being critical to getting a decent paint cure without dust or critters mixed in with the paint).

But alas, he didn’t know anyone that was flying solo in regards to shooting paint.

Now, part of the dynamic duo that buffed out my paint, Ray, happened to stop by at Guy’s hangar the other day while I was there… today I reciprocated by stopping in to Phil’s shop to ask them if they knew any independent painters.  In our ensuing discussion, Phil offered up taking a crack at really knocking the paint down (aka “orange peel”) first before doing anything more drastic.

Yep, good to collaborate and have folks offer up different courses of action other than going with the nuclear option right out of the gate <<why hadn’t I thought of that?!>>

So I ran back to my shop, collected up the ailerons and delivered them to Phil’s shop for round 2 of weight elimination.

After about 20 minutes of Phil whittling away on the top third of the left aileron, it was looking much better… and with the amount of white powder from the sanding and buffing I was beginning to think we might just be able to eliminate a good ounce by going much more aggressive on the top and bottom sides of the aileron.  He totally understood what I was needing and we agreed to at least try removing a good bit more of the undesirable orange peel and knock the paint down a good bit.  Again, giving it the ‘ol college try in eliminating as much weight as possible.

Tomorrow mid-day I’ll collect up the ailerons after Phil gives them the aggressive what-fer and check the balance.  I’ll assess and press on from there.

In regards to my schedule for the day, I had blocked out a few hours to go see the new Star Wars movie with Jess and my stepson, but then our plans changed at which point I was released from my virtual ‘holding pattern’ <wink!>.

I then engaged in another round of reviewing my past notes regarding my fuel system and jumped back into the shop to begin the process of finalizing my fuel system connections.

Now, a month or so back I had emailed Andair to ask them what the best method would be to clean up my fuel selector valve to get it looking all spiffy and new.  A bit to my surprise they told me to use 100LL as a cleaning agent to get the anodized aluminum parts looking new again… as the valve lever and cover plate had spent literally years covered by painters tape.  As you can see here.

And here… notice the gunk on all the pieces parts from both the tape and the exposure to both garden variety dust, and —moreover— micro dust that had seeped in under the tape, from all my building shenanigans.

Well, hats off to our British brethren because they hit the nail on the head!  I have a gallon of 100LL that I used for the initial calibration of my fuel tank probes many moons ago and it worked an absolute treat in cleaning up the anodized aluminum on my fuel selector valve.  Of course I followed up the 100LL fuel cleaning with some Simple Green to remove the fuel smell off the parts, but again, as you can see they came out spiffy clean!

I then set about to assess what all needs to occur to get the fuel lines terminating into said fuel selector valve and squared away for the final install.

Now, speaking of valves… I’m taking a page out of Marco’s fuel injection conversion by installing a fuel on/off valve that will allow me to cut all fuel off to one of the incoming fuel tank lines (via the GIB thigh support sump) since the line with the green tape on it has a little bit too much of a kink at the elbow below the selector valve to be called good for flight ops (I’ll have to review my notes/blog to ID as to which tank it actually goes to).

To be honest, I was going to forego these on/off cutoff valves at this point simply to get the plane in the air, mainly since I would have to engage in significant machinations to get them both installed due to the limited space under the thigh support in this area.

But since only one of the two fuel feed lines from the GIB thigh support sumps is good, I’ll have to cut the unacceptable line anyway… so I might as well get one of the two valves installed at this juncture.  I’ll note that I will PLAN both out now, but only the one will get installed:  Yep, one cutoff valve is better than nothing at this point, so to minimize build time I’m pressing forward in this direction.

As it stands now, the line showing just aft, right and below the fuel selector valve is good and will be connected with no cutoff valve.  Behind that and to the left underside of the valve is the line that has the green tape on it.  Again, that will be cut, valve installed and then a new short length of tubing cut, bent and terminated into the valve coming from the cutoff valve.

Finally, the length of tubing on the far left, adjacent the pilot thigh support rib, has been tweaked to work (I had considered installing a braided steel line here) and will be used as originally designed and configured.

One would think that this task should not have taken an entire evening to figure out, but then that is the general thought on this entire build!  In short, it did take ‘that long.’

And after getting my fuel line plan figured out, I called it a night and will press onward tomorrow.

Today was a bit of a split day, given that my elevators wanted to give me one last little bit of guff before finally settling in on the canard.

First off, on the left side the elevator outboard weight was catching on the inside front wall of the notched pocket in the canard.  It took nearly a full hour of judicious sanding (pic 1) to get a decent gap between weight and pocket (pic 2)… not quite 1/16″, but still good enough.

I will note a fix-it task I have on my to-do list, which is the left inside corner TE at the elevator outboard junction where my buffout guys somehow dinged the canard.  I’ll figure out the best fill for this and fix it after I’ve got the more important stuff knocked out.

I tried to install the set screw on the outer underside edge of the left elevator to secure the hinge pin, but the threaded hole was a bit too gunky with epoxy and paint to thread the screw in.

On the right side elevator I got the set screw to thread in, but I felt the 1/4″ set screw was too short… and this is how far in I could thread the 1/2″ set screw.  Clearly a 3/8″ screw would be just right.

Here we are a few hours later after I picked up some 3/8″ long 10-32 stainless steel set screws.

And here is the new set screw, with Loctite, threaded into place.

Also note the protruding hinge pin out of the end of canard.  I had notched the hinge pins to allow the set screws to be seated many moons ago, and for some reason both side pin ends are protruding far more than I had configured… weird.  But those protrusions on both ends will stay for now, because I’m not pulling the elevators off to regrind the hinge pin ends at this point.  That will have to be yet another future task to be completed.

I also picked up my 10-32 tap set up at my home shop to clean out the left side set screw threaded channel (and yes, note the slightly-less-protruding hinge pin).

That did the trick, after which I installed the left side elevator 3/8″ long stainless steel set screw with Loctite.

I must have picked up my phone and got cutting fluid on the lens (or something) because my next 3 pics came out fuzzy…  but I’ll add them here for you to decipher.

Here we have the elevators on the canard . . .

And (fuzzy) shots of the installed right (pic 1) and left (pic 2) elevators.

I then went to my home shop and assessed the ailerons’ weight and balance for nearly 2 hours in the shop, before spending another few hours inside finding out all the info I could on Long-EZ/canards aileron weight and balance.  I then developed my action plan… more to follow on that in the coming posts.

Pressing forward!

Ok, finally today was the day for the final installation of the elevators onto the canard.

Yesterday, after a good bit of prepping, I realized that the end of each elevator pin was gnarled from too many sessions of using vise grips on the end of them to extract them during the dark ages when it was far, far too difficult to remove the hinge pins.  So, I took the hinge pins back to my shop and cleaned them up there… after getting the canard situated at an angle inside the hangar to allow enough clearance for said hinge pins to be inserted into place.

Back to today, as you can see, using patience and continuing to work through all the minor issues I was able to get the elevators installed in about 2.5 hours.  To be clear, I do still need to install the 10-32 set screws on the outboard end of each elevator to secure the hinge pin from coming out (if that is even possible!)… but, not only did I not have a 3/32″ hex key (the only missing in the set I brought <sigh>), but the longer set screws I brought were also 1/4″, not 10-32.

The one significant issue I had after installing the elevators was that at this exact pivot point the nose of the left elevator outboard weight catches on the front vertical wall of the weight pocket in the canard.  I’ll deal with that tomorrow to get the elevator pivoting freely and unencumbered.

The good news, visible in this picture, is that ALL the thin washers are installed on the elevator hinge tabs, one on each side.  This is the left outboard hinge tab.

A couple more proof-positive pics showing confirmation of the installed washers, with them on each side of the left middle hinge tab (pic 1) and the right inboard hinge tab (pic 2).  For those of you that have had to install these washers, you know what a challenging feat it is to get these little suckers into place.

And a couple solo shots of the left (pic 1) and right (pic 2) elevators mounted to the canard.

And here we have the canard turned upright with the newly installed elevators in tow.

And one final canard shot with the elevators not really visible…

Tomorrow I plan on getting those set screws installed before I head to the shop and focus on the AILERON weight and balance.

Yep, still pressing onward!

I started out today by heading to the hangar with the intent of installing the elevators first and then heading back to my shop to knock out the weight and balance of the ailerons.  Alas, between not having all the tools on hand that I needed, helping Guy with some stuff on his Long-EZ, and generally BS’ing with some fellow EAA’ers, I didn’t get back to my shop until very late afternoon.

I then did a few hours of final research in the original LEZ plans, on the COBA forum and in my Central States Association searchable newsletters to ensure I was armed with the all the knowledge I could cram into my head regarding balancing the ailerons.

Here’s the skinny from a CSA article on what the parameters and final goal is in balancing the ailerons.

Are my ailerons, like so many other builders, represented by the one in the middle? (note: “sarcasm”).

In one CSA article Joe Person was relaying a statement by Valerie Jarret where she noted that 9 out of 10 canard aircraft they worked on did not have balanced flight controls.  IN MY OPINION, it is quite likely that both in the building and original design features of the ailerons it is near impossible to see anything near an aileron as shown in the middle picture without possibly having missed a layup ply when built.

To drive this point home, even Klaus Savier, who is maniacal when it comes to weight, noted that his original Vari-Eze ailerons were well over 6 lbs. a piece.  As there is no aileron weight parameters identified in the plans, the only other official weight reference we have is out of the Canard Pusher Newsletters that list Mike Melvill’s aileron weight at 5 lbs 2 oz before paint.

How about my ailerons?  Here is my left side aileron.  Pic 1 is the better representation of the angle vs pic 2, which the camera itself is at an angle.

I will set up a level just under the bottom surface of the aileron, but the bottom line is that my ailerons are NOT balanced, and will need added weight attached to the top of the leading edges to bring them into balance.  The max allowable weight to add per plans is 0.3 lbs.

Now, I ordered adhesive backed lead tape to use for this purpose, but I didn’t account for the total weight possibly required when I ordered this one roll many moons ago, as it is only a bit over 0.25 lbs total and I’ll need at least double that to get my ailerons balanced.

Thus, I pulled the trigger on another roll of adhesive lead weight and called it a night.

Inching forward . . .

Today was elevator day where I focused on the weight and balancing of both elevators.  I made a video detailing how and what I did for the elevator weight and balance, which explains all that I have to communicate.  Enjoy.

Tomorrow I plan on transporting the elevators to the hangar along with the tools to install them onto the canard.  I also plan on starting on the final aileron weight and balance as well.

Pressing forward!

Today I had 2 goals, both involving work at the hangar.

First, I needed to get the left wingtip nav/strobe light bracket set in place to allow me to install the nav/strobe light without an egregious gap between the light and wing tip edge.

I started that task off by first tracing the mounted light bracket so I could then remove paint, primer and micro as required —mostly towards the top and aft edge of the bracket— to get the light to sit <more> flush on the wing end surface.

Although I had used a flat sanding block specifically to create a flat light mounting surface during the finishing process, there was still an ever so slight contour to it and the light just was not having it… refusing to engage and slide down the 3 mounting tabs to secure it in place BEFORE the aft side setscrew was seated.

After literally hours of messing around with it, I finally minimized the top aft gap between nav/strobe light assembly and the wing tip edge by essentially transferring that gap to the bottom of the light.  After multiple hours of messing with it to no avail, I begrudgingly accepted this compromise to get this task done and move on with things… simply wanting to first ensure the light was actually installed and secured, since I was already down to glass on a good swath below the upper side of the bracket and running out of contour options for seating the bracket.

I had been taking breaks throughout the day to help Guy Williams down at his hangar with his Long-EZ (also chit-chatting with other EAA members) and just after I finally got the left wingtip nav/strobe light installed, Guy arrived at my hangar.

Goal #2 for the day was to get the rudders installed into the winglets and working properly.

Guy helped me install the left rudder and ensure that it wasn’t binding internally and seated in place properly (after paint) in the closed position.

Guy then helped me remove the right rudder since it was not fully closing as it was binding internally and needed some judicious sanding … which I did.  We then re-installed the right rudder temporarily to test out that it was seating fully closed after the sanding, which it was.

We then pulled the rudder off again, attached the rudder cable to the hidden belhorn with clevis and cotter pin before installing it back into the winglet a final time.

I will note that the rudder return springs are NOT installed into either the left or right aft rudder pockets, as I have not connected them yet to the rudders since I want to 3D print some protective edge sleeves for both the rudder and winglet mating edges to ensure that the paint does not get chipped during the spring install onto the rudder side hook.  That task should be coming within the next few days.

After a good day’s work, Guy and I relaxed in my hangar BS’ing for a good bit as we watched the sun go down over the bay.  I will say that I’ve got an excellent view of the water from my hangar!

I then headed home to have dinner with Jess and called it a night.  My plan for tomorrow is to balance both the elevators and the ailerons to prep those for final install before I throw myself hot ‘n heavy into the final engine install.

Pressing forward!

After this morning, except for a quick solder of the left wing’s nav light ground wire and terminating a big ring connector onto the engine end of the big yellow starter cable, the electrical wiring is complete on this airplane.

[Okay, technically not taking into account the mods that still need to be wired up in the future when I get to those tasks (all actuators): oil heat system and nose taxi light]

Also technically this is a 2-day post, as I spent nearly 3 hours terminating the wing light feeding wires out of the strakes into their respective 9-position D-Sub connectors.  Part of this task involved soldering ground pigtails to the shielded cables (one per light unit) and terminating those ground wires along with the others.  All told I used all 9 pins of each DB9 connector.

I’m not too worried about water or moisture getting into the DB9 connectors since I’ll be adding RTV where the wires enter the connector backshell and heat-shrinking the junction of the two mating connectors.  But during the occasional times I’ll remove the wings, I honestly didn’t want to mess with the unscrewing and screwing of those small 4-40 screws during each wing install and removal.  That was driving me towards using the much bulkier Deutsch or Molex connectors until I saw a hack for securing D-sub connectors on the VANs forum: Paul Dye and others simply use zip ties or safety wire to secure the two connector halves together.  EZ-PZ!

DAY 2:  Early this morning I scooted over to the hangar and terminated the 9 wires coming out of each wing with sockets (after soldering on the shield ground pigtails) and then terminated those into 9-position D-sub connectors as well.  I then installed the gray back shells.

I then took the day off for my wife’s birthday and spent a good half of the day at the beach watching a music festival before heading out for the evening for some food and libations.

Tomorrow I’m heading with Jess down to Wilmington for another full day of birthday festivities before getting back to work on the plane Monday.

Yes, a small break… then back to gettin’ er done!

As I mentioned in my last post, this past weekend with the airshow and Mother’s Day made those days a wash in regard to the build.  In addition, my wife’s birthday is this coming weekend so I’ve spent the last few days installing a car stereo in her Mustang (along with other much-needed tasks) since the one in there was dead as a door nail.

I’ve been meaning to send out the GNS480 GPS unit to Chris Short, but have been so busy I haven’t gotten around to packing it up to send it out.

I then decided before I send out the GNS480 to get a quick video with it at least installed in the panel to show the panel wiring complete, with the Trio autopilot installed as well.

At which point I discovered an issue with the Trio autopilot, which I cover in this video. And much like my last video, I filmed it last night and finished editing it today.

Okay, my quick mini-update on the panel:

Pressing forward.

This post covers the last 2 days in that I did all the work yesterday and then finished editing, compiling and posting the video this morning (before heading off to an all-day airshow).

As I removed the right, narrower GNS480 unit’s case for the internal battery swap-out, I found these scorch marks on the inside….

Which were a direct result of exploding capacitors that caused this damage on one of the daughter boards inside the unit.

Thankfully, as bad and nasty as it looks, it’s all mainly residue and the components, while blackened, are most likely undamaged… much like my Mom used to say about the black charred toast I’d often get for breakfast! (this info per my discussion with Chris Short, who saw these pics that I sent him).

Here are the offending capacitors, which there is at least 1 or 2 more pairs of these that need to be swapped out inside this unit to ensure this doesn’t happen again (thus the unit will be shipped off to Chris Short for repair and assessment).

For size reference, here are the capacitors on a small Post-It note.

But the show must go on, right?!  So in lieu of this setback and I went ahead and finished my internal battery swap-out task.  And here is the video to prove it.  Enjoy.

I will note that for the rest of the today I’ll be at Cherry Point MCAS with my little buddy (friend’s daughter) to watch the Blue Angels do their stuff.  Tomorrow is Mother’s Day so I’ll be spending as much time with Jess as possible.

I plan to get back to the build bright and early Monday.