Installed brakes, sealed firewall, finished cowls and baffles

Sealed up the firewall pass throughs. I followed the Van’s instructions on the left side using fire sleeve and RTV. It was challenging to get the fire sleeve stuffed into the fitting around the wire and also to safety wire the outer sleeve in place. Big hands. Small spaces. On the right side, there was no way I was going to be able to get my hands into the space necessary to take this same approach. I was able to form a cone around the cables/wires with tape. I then used a calking gun to fill the void with 3M Fire Barrier 2000+. The tape on the forward side formed a mold to force the sealant between all of the wires. Made a huge mess but it worked.

 

Installed AN fittings into brake calipers. Fabricated the brake lines and installed.

 

Finished installing the baffle seals on the cowling and installed the cowling back on the airplane.

 

I also spent some time tidying up the wiring under the panel and installing the adel clamps and wire ties on the control cables.

 

Today’s Time (hours): 10.0
Finish kit (hours): 323.0
Total Time (hours): 1057.0

Installed rudder pedals and brake lines

Attached the brake pedals and brake master cylinders to the rudder pedals.

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Drilled out the mounting blocks and installed the rudder pedal assembly into the fuselage.

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Installed the brake fluid reservoir. The threads in the filler neck were galled so I’m going to call Van’s and have them send me a replacement. I mounted it in place anyway so that I could run all the brake lines.

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Installed the brake lines.

 

Separated and painted the rudder cable links. I’ll install these along with the fairleads where the cables exit the tunnel tomorrow and that will complete this section.

img_3816

 

Today’s Time (hours): 3.0
Fuselage Time (hours): 168.0
Total Time (hours): 622.5