Joshua's RV-9A Project

The best laid plans, they say…  the summer was basically a bust as far as the plans I had to work on the plane, but not all for naught, as I did get some other projects started/done, and have been doing more flying, including some in-state XC day trips.  I had hoped to take a week off work in June, and a week in August, and lay down the hours; the June week I took, and spent it doing work at home, and the August week never happened due to a cadre of projects that needed to be largely done before the school year started.  Now we’re back to the old routine: evenings & weekends when other things aren’t happening.  The last home project for the summer was to “organize” (aka “restack more neatly”) the garage/shop, in hopes of getting at least one vehicle inside for the winter.  Fall will bring more projects, but tonight, I headed out to the shop for the first time in over a month.

Not really having a specific place I left off, I started by looking over things and making a mental list of things that needed doing.  I decided to have a go at installing the blast tubes for the Pmags.  Dug out the 3/4″ SCAT, cut appropriate lengths, and affixed them to the flanges on the baffles with hose clamps.  The right side has the oil pressure tap elbow right there, so I secured that tube in position with a ziptie around the elbow.  The left side has nothing in the right spot for that, so I made a little holder clip that bolts to the mag hold-down stud, and has a half-circle for the tube to nest in, and a slot for a ziptie to wrap around the tube.  This worked out well, and I would have made one for the right side too, but I don’t think there is enough room to get one in there.  I also made a blast tube for the alternator, but I haven’t yet figured out how to secure it to the alternator itself, nor exactly where it should point.

I’ve decided to mount the current shunt, which I initially left out thinking the VP-X would provide the amps feed to the EFIS.  It does, but the EFIS doesn’t display it on the main screen, nor provide a way to alarm on it; it’s display-only on the VP-X page.  With no indication that this may be forthcoming, I’m opting to install the shunt, which will give me a different type of current reading anyhow; having both available may make it easier to troubleshoot certain types of electrical problems.  (The VP-X will indicate how many amps are being drawn by the electrical systems, and the shunt will indicate hoe many amps are being supplied by the alternator.)  Located and marked the mounting location, and did the inital running of the wire pair that connects the shunt to the EFIS.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 12th, 2011 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Electrical, Engine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.