Lindy
11/2/2008
Alrighty...November is here ALREADY!! The strange thing is the weather. It's 72 degrees outside, and sunny, which made it about 77 degrees in the garage. November? Hmmm...should be like 45 and raining.
I brought home a 17/64's drill bit from work for the weekend so I could finish up the firewall eyeball installations. That bit was for the eyeball for the throttle and mixture cables. I don't really like how the eyeballs tighten down because the ball wants to move with the tightening ring. Anyway, the carb heat has yet to be tightened since the airbox hasn't been fitted yet...the other two are tight.
Then I turned my attention back to the engine control bracket, and the braces I fabbed up to give it rigidity. I used some lightweight angle to make the braces with, and just sorta bent and fit things to get it right. Here's the first one being fitted-
The idea here is to give the bracket strength, and give something for the cables to clamp to. By installing them at an angle, I crossed all four cables, and was able to use Adel clamps to secure them.
It worked out great, and the cables are nice and tight and actuate properly as well.
With that in place, I wanted to check to see how the controls felt while sitting in the airplane. So, for the first time, I finally did sit in the airplane to really get a feel for it (and thought about making airplane noises while mind flying...). I pulled out the seats from Flight Line Interiors, and set them in place. I did have to modify the seatback brace because it interfered with the roll bar, but that is a known problem and was easy to correct with the snips and wheel.
Brit wasn't home at the time, so I was unable to get a shot of me sitting in it...maybe later on for the next entry...the seats are VERY comfortable though! I am very pleased with them, and my friend Carl borrowed the seat bottoms for a few weeks to test fit some stuff on his 9A...he sat on them for a solid hour, and had no trouble whatsoever with comfort. These are the all confor-foam seats, so they distribute the weight very well.
The only other thing I did today was clamp the canopy release handle to the subpanel. I waited to do this to see how the engine control cables would be routed. Not an issue. I just twisted an Adel clamp to hold it in place to keep it from rattling.
I did have several airplanes fly over the house today...one of them was probably Larry taking his wife for a ride in the Diamond 20...and it made me pretty jealous that they were out flying on this beautiful day, while I was on the ground. It was fun though, and I still love building, and being in the garage.
4.5 hours