Twisted: Week 245 - Fuse base prep

Hours to date: 2482.25

Preparations continue for the fuselage base. Everything must be tickity-boo before it is bonded on.

Taking the advice of the local UL Power agent, Mark from Galaxy Microlights, I have fitted Dowty type washers to the fuel pumps. My inspector Rex also agreed this was a good idea. They seal better than the copper type washers and can be reused.

I've also been profiling the root rib on the fuse at the bottom to line up with the wing profile. Actually it should be about 2mm lower to allow for the fuse base thickness and glass reinforcing to come. We don't want to be changing the profile of the wing to fit the fuse base, the wing shape is critical, the fuse base not so much.

I spent 5 hours getting the spinner gap plates profiled to fit the prop, yes I was working very slowly here, a little at a time. We now have a perfect gap to the prop.

The next big job was getting the wing auto connect electrics sorted out.

Honestly if I knew then what I know now I would not bother with this set up. It is a lot of hassle and work to install and only really of benefit if you are taking your wings on and off regularly. If I could go back in time I would just opt for a simple Molex connector. These connectors were very expensive too so I decided to stick with plan A and go ahead and use them.

See the pics below for how to fit them.

I spent a good deal of time sorting out the wing fitting while I was doing this job as I had not previously fitted the wings with the pins in and the flaps on. As you know I made my flap pins too long on purpose and then trimmed them back to fit. I also noticed that the flap itself was contacting the flap drive on the fuse in the middle so that needed a bit of trimming too. All good now, both wings fit on nicely with the pins in.

I've had to have the muffler modified too. It was just too close to the cowling and there should be a good 1 inch of space. So I got CKT Engineering (http://www.cktengineering.com/) in Devon to cut the ends off and weld up the gap. They have made a brilliant job of it. See the pics below. Highly recommended company to deal with.

Hopefully by the next blog post we should have the fuselage base bonded on.

Dowty type washers and a copper one on top to show the difference.

Early look at the fuse base fitting. As per the manual they say to employ tie downs to pull the base down snug.

Profiling the fuse root rib to the wing - as you can see it is a little bit lower to allow for the base.

Spinner gap plates finally done. Profiled to the lower edge of the prop.

Fuel pumps with Dowty washers.

Wing electrics auto connectors. One on the fuse root (at right) is a 'floating' type to allow for slight movement.

Fuse base is fitting better here - still some more tweaks to go.

How to fit the electric connectors. Mount wing to fuse and scribe the position through the hole made for the root rib connector part.

Cut out hole to allow for the wing connector part to fit with it's carbon plate then tape in place and mount wings again to make sure position is right before scribing the carbon plate area.

Only cut through the outside layer of carbon and then dig out the honeycomb inside.

Now you are ready to bond in the carbon plate with flock. Mount the wings to ensure position is correct while the flock bonds.

You will end up with something like this.

Wiring on the inside of the fuse root rib part of the connector. 3 small wires for the fuel level sender and one larger wire for the earth from the fuel tank.

On fitting the wings I discovered that the flap drive was contacting the flap outer near the pin so more Dremel work was needed here.

Every fitting on the underside of the fuse has been checked for tightness and then marked with Torque Seal. This helps with inspecting in the future as any movement of a fitting will break the Torque seal.