It was another full house in the Garaggio today. Greg, Jon, and Eric were all here working on the airplane today.
Greg got a lot done on the oil cooler and fuel distribution mount. In fact, they are pretty much done with exception of having the right hardware.
Next will be making the duct that exhausts the oil cooler air our the back baffle. It’s a pretty simple piece to make, and maybe I’ll get to it tomorrow.
Jon started his day by making a mount for the autopilot roll servo. It took us quite a bit of time talking through the options to decide exactly how to mount it. Finally we decided on the bottom of the spar, which requires a mounting standoff.
Jon and my day kinda took some turns. I had planned on doing some wiring. But when Jon and I started talking about mounting the back up battery for the EFIS screen, we decided it was best to mount it to a cover over the nose gear. The cover is necessary to prevent drafty air from entering the cockpit. It also makes a nice place to mount the back up battery.
Our process was somewhat crude, but quick and functional. We fastened blocks of foam on the gear motor to create and offset and clearance around the motor. Then we “paper mâché-Ed” aluminum tape around the motor to the bulkheads and LG30s.
Then we again used a paper mâché like method and laid pre-wet out fiberglass on our form. Overlapping plies. Splicing in pieces where need be. It’s not structural except where the back up battery will mount, so there is a plywood reinforcement there. But the rest is pretty flimsy. But in reality it is an environmental cover.
By the time we did all that it was quitting time for Jon and Greg, but Eric had just arrived. So Eric and I got on to some wiring. A remaining takes from last time with Eric was to add a resistor in the landing gear indicating circuit. So he did that while I crimped some ends on power cables.
Then Eric put a circular plastic connector (CPC) on the front stick. We would have done the rear stick as well, however I screwed up when I was ordering pins. I didn’t order enough. So we need to order more.
Lastly, we permanently mounted the ground bus on the avionics shelf. We also made up a ground cable from there to the battery to complete the circuit.
That was it for today, a lot actually. We will see what tomorrow brings. But I’m looking forward to more wiring and maybe getting the switch functions working.
the Garaggio 