More Micro Projects While Waiting

For those of you still following along, you know that I am playing a marathon waiting game with Jan Eggenfellner, Viking Aircraft Engines, for the delivery of the long overdue wing tanks.  Oshkosh ended yesterday and the promised deliveries of wing tanks never occurred as promised.  Tantalizing pictures of fabricated wing tanks loaded in the back of a pickup truck appeared on the Viking Aircraft Engines portal.  A friend, also awaiting delivery, forwarded an email he received from Eggenfellner stating that he ran out of time prior to the big show to deliver to customers.  The drama continues.

In the meantime, I am trying to fill my time with any tasks I can see that need to be done independent of the wing tank installation.  I can't even finish the fuselage as flaperons must be fitted to the forward fuselage before I can install the tailcone, roll servo, back window and many other dependent parts.

So, here is what I've been doing:

Micro project #1. Replacing and re-wiring the control grips as I had apparently burned  out one of my grips by somehow backfeeding 12 volts through a ground wire, according to Kevin Tosten.  Being the great guy he is, he had me ship both grips back to him and he reworked them by installing new, upgraded and more conventional DPDT hat switches that have a much improved feel than the original hats (even though they were completely acceptable).  The guy charged me the princely sum of $10 for all his time and new parts!  I just can't say enough good things about Tosten Manufacturing and Kevin's products.  Below are a couple of shots of the re-worked unit going back into the shortened control stick.

Micro project #2. "Skinning" the instrument panels with a synthetic carbon fiber vinyl.  No in-process shots taken, just the final product.  I'm very  happy with the look and I must say that I got the three panel skins (patterns) all in pretty darned nice alignment.

The process consisted of cleaning and then priming the surface to be covered with 3M's Primer 94.  The primer promotes greater adhesion to the vinyl than just the adhesive of the vinyl itself.  The vinyl I chose is the 3M Di-Noc product in a flat black carbon fiber pattern.

I ordered a 24 x 48 inch piece of material and have about 1/3 left over after skinning all 3 panels plus the glove box door and a switch sub-panel.  As I progress in final assembly of the aircraft I will see if I have enough material left over to skin the center console between the pilot and passenger.

That's about all for now.  Stay tuned....one day, the project will resume it's normal pace.

Catching Up

Unfortunately, there is precious little to catch up on.  All of the nice things I previously stated about Jan...well, guess I have to re-think that again.  More promises of deliveries and more delays on receiving said wing tanks.  They were promised for about the fourth time in June and now it's July.  Not going to dwell on it; you can draw your own conclusions.

I do have some other stuff to catch you up on.

First, continued preparations for the wing tanks, whenever they arrive.  The first picture below shows the heart of the fuselage components of the wing/fuel tank assembly.  It is actually shown 90 degrees out of it's installed orientation.  In other words, the larger black tube is the standpipe which is mounted vertically in the baggage compartment, in place of the conventional RV-12 "box" tank.

Here is what the standpipe looks like installed on the passenger side of the baggage compartment.  It's a big (small in size..minimum fuel in fuselage) improvement in the replacement of the box tank.

 
 The picture below shows the passenger side brass elbow connection to the standpipe.  In this instance, fuel will run to the standpipe from the right wing.

Note in the picture below the rubber hoses running for partial lengths along the various tubes.  These are in place to mitigate any chaffing and/or bouncing from the rudder and stabilator control cables.  From left to right, the black sleeved tube is the left wing fuel supply line that runs to a similar elbow fitting (shown above) on the pilot side of the aircraft.  The next tube with the AN elbow/coupler will connect to the Viking engine's fuel return line.  Don't forget that a fuel injected engine is a pressurized system.  Finally, the third tube with the clear sleeved hose is the fuel supply line to the engine.

 Close up of the terminus of two of the tubes and the left supply line running further.

The long fuel supply line had to be trimmed to the proper length and then threaded with 1/8 inch pipe threads for the brass elbow fitting.  So how do you put threads onto a nearly 48 inch length of light weight aluminum tubing?  Well, use a huge lathe or in the absence of such, anchor one end to a vice on your workbench and get on a stool and cut the threads by hand with your favorite die.

Contortions and more contortions later...you arrive at the promised land of a threaded tube.

 Next item to tackle was the positive ventilated crankcase.  Seems some Viking engine drivers are experiencing very dark colored oil after just a few hours between oil changes.  Signs seem to point to a lot of combustion blow by, so perhaps application of a positive ventilation to the crankcase can minimize that.  The oil tank (not pictured) is actually going to be vented into the intake manifold, courtesy of a tube running from the filler neck (of the oil tank) into the air cleaner.  This will provide a slight lower pressure (vacuum) for the crankcase which will draw a supply of fresh air from an inlet tube attached to the valve cover.

BTW, from here to the conclusion of this blog, please disregard the errant date stamp on the photos, as the year should not be 2016.

Here is a shot of the existing unvented, valve Viking cover.

And here is a picture of the new cover, being modified, prior to installation.  In this case, the inlet hose barb was removed and the remaining inlet tube is being threaded to accept a plug.  The Viking valve cover vent inlet will be in another location.

The next picture shows the new valve cover with it's new vent tube installed on the top, running parallel to the cover itself.  It is also black and does not show up very well.

Here's another vantage point, where you might be able to see it better.  It is a 5/8 OD aluminum tube, with a small brass filter affixed at the aft end.

With the new valve cover (btw, it's a stock Honda part) comes a new requirement for attaching the engine's wiring harness.  Out with the old adele clamps and in with the new Honda loom clamps that handily snap into place on the valve cover.  The new plumbing actually cleaned up the harness assembly.

To conclude this Catching Up installment, I will post a few pictures of the control cable fitment.

First up are the rudder cables running from the baggage compartment forward to the console, with the tail cone not yet connected but in close proximity.  Notice the plastic sheath which will insulate the cable as it runs beneath the fuselage seating area of the fuselage.

The rudder cable is secured forward, onto the rudder pedal and it now trails on back toward the tail.

The last shot shows the stabilator's most forward termination to the torque tube for the control sticks.

Stay patient...and stay tuned.  No telling where/when this wing tank saga may end!