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.

9/22 and 9/23 Engine and Prop Installation

Yesterday we routed the plumbing for the fuel and water and struggled with the fact that we still are missing some parts like the VA216...and is anyone ELSE missing that fuel connector? Today we worked on the spinner, pitot tube and putting on the blades for the prop. Tomorrow, we'll put on the nutplates for the spinner and backplate.

9/18/09 Engine Installation

Naturally, I didn't have the camera out in the 'hangar' with me, but we got the engine attached to the front of the airplane. I screwed an eyebolt to the ceiling, attached a come-along, wrapped a strap around the engine and hoisted away. We had to open up the large washers that attached to the engine mount, but that was about it. We're still waiting for the VA215 that's been backordered, but I called Vans and they said it'd be sent out in about 2 weeks and that another CARE package is going to be sent out on Monday. We can move around a lot better since we rearranged the garage.
More tomorrow.
Meade and George RV120016

9/18/09

9/17 'Dashboard light-up'...

George got everything to work on the panel today; small glitch with the radio but pulling out the squelch button seemed to make everything ok. After that, he fine tuned the 'pots' and made everything work the way they were supposed to work.
We rearranged the garage a little in order to have the plane in at an angle, so now we can hang the engine. I took a photo of the front of the garage so you can see the engine and the position of the plane.

Finishing Kit Adventures 9/16/2009

Since our last entry, we've been finishing up miscellaneous parts from the canopy. George felt it prudent to have someone with more experience do the fiberglass work on the canopy,so he had one of his EAA buddies come in and help us out. While our friend was working on the canopy, we continued with 'fine-tuning' the instrument panel and getting out the kinks of the instrument installation.
We also received the engine a couple of weeks ago and we have completed the modifications called out by Van's. We're at the point now of having to reposition the worktables in the garage so we change the position of the plane so that it will fit in the garage with the engine mounted.
One of the more perplexing problems I've encountered is the interior paint; it's flaking off. Before I started painting, I checked with the paint shop and I followed their directions but I was given some bad information. SO, now I've got to figure a way of dealing with the interior in terms of getting rid of the paint and repainting.
I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping a daily log of keeping up with daily work from here on out.