Tuesday 2
I have decided to do all of the things required to get the cowlings and fuselage ready for painting. I really like to get that done before it starts getting miserably cold. One area I hadn't paid any attention to was the door frames. I had previously removed the rubber seals, put in some filler, masked it and it was ready for painting. I sprayed on 3 coats of smooth prime on the fuselage around the cowling area and the insides of the doors. As per usual I was out of practice and I got my prerequisite number of runs in the paint.
Wednesday 3 ~ Friday 5
Sanding, sanding, sanding.............
Saturday 6 ~
I still have the fuselage in its jig so I rolled it onto its side and finished off the sanding around the bottom areas of the cowling section.
Since I was particularly tired of sanding I decided to do something different. I wanted to make the instrument panel easy to mount up so I decided to
made threaded spacers for the instrument panel so the screws would be mounted in the panel sticking out. The idea was that I could then push the panel into place and then put the nuts on. While I was messing around with the panel I made template so I could transcribe the panel outline into the firewall. This should help planning of the firewall penetrations.
I the evening I dual tasked by watching television and figuring out the deltas for my 914 firewall forward kit.
Sunday 7
I did a bit of top cowling work, first up was to cut out the cooling gills. I did this with a Dremmel and a Permagrit tool but it was still slow careful work. I then sanded down the top cover with 320 grit.
Latter in the afternoon I aligned the rudder pedals with the tail wheel, thank goodness for turn buckles! I tried fitting the panel, and it didn't work so I need to rethink the idea.
Last cowling job for the weekend was to made a blue foam ramp for the air inlet. The inlet as designed has a sharp transition which is sure to create air turbulence and drag.
Monday 8
No building
Tuesday 9
I tried fitting the instrument panel again but it is obvious that I will have to modify my approach. I have decided to put nut plates in the panel for all of the mounting holes except the top two. The idea is that I should be able to "hang" the instrument panel from the top two studs and then put the scres into the rest of the mounting holes from the firewall side.
Wednesday 10
Mounted a few nut plates in the instrument panel
Thursday 11
I pop riveted the rest of the nut plates on the instrument panel
Friday 12
I did a bit more smooth prime in the cowl. and laid a bit more cloth to get a smooth transition.
Saturday 13 ~ Sunday 14
I was a rainy weekend, so there was not a lot to do other than build airplanes. I uncrated the 914 and got it positioned under the engine host. The first thing I noticed was that it uses different fuel pumps, two electric rotary pumps. I removed the old pump and made up the new fuel pump assembly.
My only concern for this arrangement is that both pumps are fed from a single gascolator. This means that a blockage is serious. To mitigate the risk I will have a fuel pressure sensor set up on my EIS with an alert fro low pressure in order to detect the condition before it becomes a problem
I sanded back smooth prime and glass cloth on cowling inlet and added more smooth prime and set it aside to dry. I did a little more cowl trimming around the air ext area and finished sanding the nose holes.
I put the spacers back on the instrument panel and tried hanging it in the aircraft. It worked perfectly!
Monday 15
No building
Tuesday 16
One of the tasks I need to do is to make a plenum chamber so that I can get the outside air from my heat box to the four vents in the aircraft. I caved up some blue foam and laid on 3 plies of bid.
Wednesday 17
I trimmed up air box plenum chamber and it looks like it will do the job okay. I spent the rest of the evening machining up 4 aluminum tube outlets to be fitted into the plenum chamber. I reduxed in a couple of them and called it a night.
Thursday 18
I reduxed in the second set of tubes into the air box plenum chamber and put it away so I wouldn't bump the tubes while the redux was setting. I wanted to put the new engine on, but I found that the 912S nearly over balanced the airframe as the support frame was very close to the C of G. To try and prevent this I made up some spacers and moved the support frame forward 40 mm.
The last task for the night was to put the engine on. I have borrowed an engine host from our EAA chapter so this makes the whole task very simple. Unfortunately the fuselage definitely overbalances to I have tp be content with putting lead shot bags on the tail wheel.
Friday 19
My friend Graham Singleton wanted to come over for the annual canard aircraft fly in, so he graciously agreed to come over a week early and help me with my project.
Saturday 20
Well the sun was shining, no one was using the Comanche so instead of building I went flying down to Chicago with Graham. Its a great flight to be able to take folks along the Chicago skyline, just a pit that Meigs air field has been destroyed.
In the evening I cleaned up plenum chamber added rivnuts so i could mount it with the same screws as the heat box.. I mounted it up and it looks about right, but until the panel is in I won't be sure.
I had forgotten to put in the split pins for the bottom engine mounts and means removing the firewall which is a job I am beginning to dislike... a lot
I spent quite some time figuring out if I could mount the waste gate servo and the turbo control unit some where other that the recommened location. The problem I have is that I really had the firewall and intrument panel space "spoken for"
Pondered where to put the TCU and waste gate servo
Now the really coolest part of the whole visit from Graham is that he has made a prototype set of wing tip lenses and he is going to fit them up on my Europa.
Sunday 21
I intend to make cut out's in my fire wall to make acces to the back of the instrument panel possible. I saved the piece of firewall material that I cut out of the tunnel several years ago for this exact reason. Given that this exercise is something that I will get only one opportunity to get right I spend a great deal of time making templates.
Monday 22
Well is always seems surprising to me how long the smallest tasks take sometimes. I made up the covers for my cut outs and fitted nut plates on the fire wall. That seemed to take almost half a day.
Now that I have the holes in the fire wall I wanted to fit the panel and see what kind of clearances I have. The first thing I discovered was that the back of the radio stack hit the out let tubes on my plenum chamber so I pulled it off for a bit of surgery. I removed the two tubes and fiber glassed up the holes, so I going to have to figure out something different on that score.
The last task for the day was to fit up the TCU. I put it as describe in the manual, but rotated 90 degrees. The reason for this is that I needed clearance for the propeller controller.
Tuesday 23
I mounted the waste gate controller as specified in the manual, but it was very handy to be able to visually ensure that the thing cleared the radios and other bits and pieces. In general I really don't have much free room inside the panel area.
I mounted vacuum regulator and earth bus bar and again, being able to visually confirm I had chosen the correct spot was a god send.
Last task for the day was to refit the plenum chamber and unfortunately it still doesn't fit right!
Wednesday 24
I fitted up the oil and water coolers into the frame and Graham pointed out to me all of the gaps which I didn't really think were that important, however he said that the air would much rather flow through the gaps than the coolers which made sense.
I did my best to seal the gaps and re fitted all of the gaskets along the side. I put the bottom cowling on and it was apparent that they we only just adequate. I am thinking of getting some more material and making them wider
Thursday 25
I fitted the oil cooler into the ducting and lowered it so the bottom half was exposed. I actually put the bottom cowling on and lowered it until it was almost touching. I should probably figure out how to seal that gap as well. I turned up a set of spacers in my lathe out of aluminum, I am not sure how other people do it. Nothing seems to secure the top of the radiator so I made a bracket to make it more ridged.
The second job for the day was to fit up the metal work on to go around the turbo charger. This didn't fit up close enough to allow the air filter to fit on really well so I had to rework it to clear the hose going up to the air box.
Friday 26 ~ Sunday 28
Monday 29
I put on a whole bunch of nut plates to support the air box and cooling duct. Getting the darn things in the correct place is best described as tedious and time consuming, particularly when you don't have anyone to hold them on the other side of the firewall.!
I grit blasted the oil reservoir bracket and gave it a coat of paint.
Tuesday 30
I fitted an additional gusset behind the oil reservoir bracket as there had been a few reports of them cracking, so hopefully that will make it a bit more rigid. I mounted it up and it seems very solid.
I discovered that the braided fuel hose I had was the old type which Europa had discontinued due to premature degradation so I removed it. The darn thing sure came out easier that it went in !. I slide the the stainless steel braiding off and I will buy some hose from NAPA and try and slide it back on.