Today we had the usual compliment of work partiers, plus one. It was Dick, Jon, Sam, and me. We ended up working on quite a few tasks today.
Dick and I started by coping the two remaining new tubes for the engine mount. We almost made a big mistake. We initially fit the tubes with the engine mount loosely positioned on the engine.
Luckily when we went to tack weld the tubes in place, we torqued the engine mount bolts. This revealed our error before we welded tubes into the mount that would have conflicted with the engine. We re fit the tubes to the engine mount and Dick finished the welding with Sam for help positioning the mount.
Sam started his day by cleaning up the GEA25 mount. Trimming it to shape and checking fit. Then Jon showed him how to drill for nut plates and rivet them on.
I prepped the spar area in the hell hole to bond this in position. It is simply floxed in place. I intended to put some bid over the top of the flanges, but it is so strong, I don’t think it is necessary.
Jon got the starter solenoid and firewall electrical pass throughs mounted. He also started running the massive 2AWG wires to the starter and alternator. Oh, and he got a 2 BID tape reinforcement onto the avionics shelf. He was a busy guy.
Lastly, Sam got some anchor points bonded into the airplane with JB Weld. They are low profile plastic devices that you can feed a zip tie through to make it easy to tie things to the aircraft structure. These will be used to secure the wiring harnesses into the airplane.
Sorry the writing hasn’t been very technical or entertaining. Lots going on and hard to keep track of it all in addition to long days. Tomorrow is the last day of the work party session. Then we will go from there.
the Garaggio 