Work Part Day 9; engine pulled

Dick is an expert welder and I need my engine mount repaired. If you go way back to the beginning of this blog, one of my earlier posts was that in order to hang the engine, I had to cut a tube out of the engine mount. When Dick and I fabricated the engine mount, we put a tube in backwards and it created interference with the engine. So we pulled the engine today.

We decided on a slightly modified engine mount structure to make everything work a bit better. So Dick cut and fit a new tube to fit horizontally across the bottom of the engine mount. Then the tube was tacked in place with the mount on the airplane to prevent warping and preserve the fit to the airplane.

Dick then took the engine mount off and used clamps to keep the engine mount rigid. Sort of a make shift jig. Then final welded this tube. There are 2 more tubes to add to complete the repair, but they are relatively simple and we will get those in tomorrow.

While the engine was off, I took the opportunity to install the mechanical fuel pump. I don’t have an appropriate Allen socket to tighten these bolts to final torque, so I haven’t safety wired it yet. I have added it to my list of must do before flight.

Jon worked on another stiffener and attach bracket for the aft baffle on the left side. Then drilled and added nut plates for the attach screws. The baffles are getting pretty rigid and we keep knocking pieces out.

In between helping on those tasks I worked more on the avionics shelf. I cleaned up yesterday’s layup. Then I trial fit all of the components and wiring harness onto the shelf to verify that everything can be assembled and disassembled with the shelf bonded in. Once that was verified, I flexed the shelf in place. Since there was a relatively big gap, I peel plied the Flox and will do the BID tape later to keep the seam looking neater.

Lastly, I made a mold for a GEA25 mount. This is the engine analyzer box and will be mounted on the spar. I laid up the bid cloth and peel ply on the mold and hopefully we can mount that on the spar tomorrow.

Stay tuned. 2 more days of work party!