Tuesday evening... (Sept 2, 2025)
Pin keepers installed in the stab / elevator / trim. THAT was a challenge solo. Thank god for the body work stand. I use that thing ALL THE TIME.
I was flying solo tonight, so had to get inventive on how to hold the elevator up. Tape worked!
Peeled a lot of tape off the front window... looks reasonable, but not perfect. I think I can fix the problem areas. Also got some silpruf on the interior, but it is coming off with a bit of effort. Forgot to take a pic. 2 days until the clecos come out.
On the last engine run the pipe off the turbo had a shake. It was only supported with 1 mount, and its a long pipe. Added a second mount at 90 degrees (roughly). I think this will work. It is definitely less 'shakey' just wiggling it.
That was a 3.5 hour evening. But it was definitely progress.
Front window came out of the clamps!
Looks pretty good.Put lock nuts on the new exhaust clamp... I found some.
Installed Deutsch connector under the tail cone for the rudder trim. The bulkhead connector finally arrived from China.
Seriously impressed with these connectors. The elevator side has been converted (from molex) as well.
OK, well my trim connector upgrade did not go as planned. I temporarily assembled everything to test the wiring, and nothing worked. Very quickly I found that the thin 26 gauge wires were either broken, or about to break. I have spliced on larger gauge aviation wire on both sides and am testing again. The ray allen 5 conductor wire is very thin and weak.
The strange / weird thing... I attempted to use solder sleeves to graft on new wires. The solder in the sleve would not stick to the ray allen wire. I ended up tinning them first with solder and an iron first, and then using a solder sleeve. I did a sample piece first (finally learned my lesson) and it is a strong joint now.
I put everything together, and nothing would work. Zero. Took it all apart and realized that on the socket side I did not have the pins fully engaged. It seems like there are two 'clicks' when you push the pin / socket into the connector. I only got past the first 'click' the first time. Once fully engaging the pins everything worked as intended.
Checking the elevator travel. Manual calls for +23 and -20 (+/- 1 degree). I am getting the -20, but not the +23... about 2 degrees short. Filing the stop plate through the belly inspection panel. After an afternoon of filing and checking, I gained a degree. One more to go.
Sunday... Sept 7
Put the prop on. 3 times :-)
The manual says to pack the cavity between the thrust bearing and threads with grease... it says to use a spatula. So I did... the blades were not fully seating. The ferrule was lose... and it was visible. Later the manual says too much grease will cause exactly this. So I took it apart and cleaned out the grease and reinserted the blade. Was better, but not correct. So did it again.. on each blade. Finally they were all seating correctly and torqued per spec.
Next was the bead of silpruf between the window and fuselage. Lots of cleaning of crap out first... my theory is to get all the leftover crap out. The 'dressing' needs to stick on all 3 sides. So lots of pulling out the leftover bits (I could have done a better job during the insertion of the window... being honest). Then taping the gap...
Then filling the gap and smoothing it...
That was a 10 hour day... Monday will be seeing what I have... fingers crossed.
