Section 49

For the past couple of days, we've been working on the cowling and cooler box assembly and the oil cooler. Yesterday, we did the fiberglassing for the cooler box and today we put on the VA213, 14, and 15. It involved routing the hoses in and around the engine mount.
We are beginning to "...see the light at the end of the tunnel." and tomorrow, we'll put the gas tank in, put the instrument panel cover back on (we finally received one of the 'clamshells' for one of the 26 pin connectors), and possibly put the canopy on. We checked on prices for getting the plane inspected and it looks like it'll be about $400.00. We may actually get to get the engine cranked next week, so we need to start bringing in the oil and coolant.
You'll see photos of the inside of the bottom cowling showing the fiberglassing of the cooler box and the plumbing on the engine.

Gas tank fun!!!10/22

We got the tank assembled a couple of days ago and tested it yesterday. It leaked...
We took it apart and cleaned it up. It was pretty messy. We reasssembled it today and patched the leaks. We'll check it tomorrow. We did the heater cable today and some work on the oil cooler.

Sealing and unsealing gastank 10/21/09

October 21st, we sealed the gastank. This has got to be one part that Vans sends as a completed unit. It took the both of us about 4 hours to do and then we let it set overnight. Today, we did the pressure test, and it failed. We saw it was leaking around the NEW visual gas tank fuel gauge. George and I both think it was because Vans tells you to only snug the screws securing the glass. They should have had us tighten the screws more. We were thinking about drilling out the 82 rivets holding the top, but we decided to open the round cover on the side and attempt to simply remove the leaking part from the arge flot hold.
Tomorrow, we'll reseal the components and reassemble the tank.

Engine Installation, etc..

Again, we haven't been that productive of late. We were waiting for VA216 for about a month but much to our embarrassment, we already had it; the depiction completely fooled us and we weren't looking for a rubber hose with a metal piece in the middle.
Anyway, today, we finally epoxied the top of the gas tank in place, we pulled the gas lines and corrected the bend in them, we ran the heater control cable ( a pain in the butt) which should have been installed before some of the hoses were installed). Earlier last week, we installed the oil plumbing and and some of the cowling.
The photos today include heater cable routing, and George being eaten by the instrument panel while re-installing the auto pilot light.