Joshua's RV-9A Project

Mostly baffles again today, but I think I can see the light at the end of that tunnel.  Finished up the forward ramps, trimmed the inner pieces, and drilled the clips that hold the vertical segments in position.  Pulled them apart to deburr and rivet.  Fit those back to the engine, and pulled the aft baffles to clean up, deburr bolt holes, and install the takeoffs for Pmag blast tubes, and purge line grommet.  Refit the aft baffles to the engine.  Will need a grommet for the purge valve cable yet, and to figure out how to route the cord for the engine preheater.  Need to pick up some screen for the second cabin heat takeoff, then that can be riveted on.  Baffle metalwork is nearly done, except for all the trimming at the top.

One bit of fun: installed the “EXPERIMENTAL” placard…doing little cosmetic-type things like this makes it feel like the end of the project might be attainable.

The Bill of Sale arrived today from Van’s, so I can start plugging through the registration paperwork.  Also got confirmation on my prop order today, and (re)ordered the ELT from Van’s, after checking that they actually had stock–cancelled the order at Spruce, where I’ve been on the waiting list; they have no idea when more are coming.  Harnesses and brake lines should arrive this week, as well.  Need to order the prop spacer kit.

Or, more accurately, ‘n’ more baffles…  I did do one non-baffle thing today, which was to mount the capacitor for the SD-8 backup alternator next to the relay, now that I have the correct size adel clamp.  The only cabin-side part of that system which can’t be pre-mounted is the regulator, since it comes as a package with the alternator.  There is a dimensional drawing for it, so I could install the nutplates and hope the drawing is accurate…  (Trying to be cheap and not buy it until a future upgrade date.)

Then, back to baffles.  It doesn’t look much different after a day’s work, but the inlet ramps have been bent to fit, the forward corners formed, and the conical-bend filler pieces fabricated and drilled.  Trimmed the front inside corners for clearance to the flywheel and alternator belt.  The ramps and stiffeners have been riveted, and holes made for the LH cabin heat take-off, and the alternator blast tube.  Locations marked for the Pmag blast tubes, which will be drilled when the rear baffles come off again.  The inlet ramps were trimmed to fit the cowl, with a 1/2″ gap between cowl and metal, which will be bridged by the airseal fabric.

With the inlet ramps in good shape, attention turned to the vertical pieces behind the flywheel, which took more iterative fitting to get the angles right.  Made and drilled the attach clips for the right side, and cut the stock for the left before calling it a night.  Need to look at my saved baffle reference links to see how the vertical piece is trimmed, as it’s not clear in the directions or included photos whether it’s trimmed back to the length of the ramps (which would make sense from a vibration standpoint) or left longer.

Deburred the front lower baffle pieces and finished fitting them to the engine.  Then, read the next page of instructions several times and studied all the diagrams until it made sense how this is supposed to fit together at the intakes.  Wrestled the lower cowl into a place where I could mark some guide lines, and made some initial trims.  After a couple cycles of fitting and trimming, I have the inlet ramps trimmed to a point where the lower cowl can be put on.  The ramps are still longer than the end goal, to allow for progressive trimming to get the fit right.  Need to do more reading & picture studying to understand the interface between cowl, airseal fabric, and baffles.

My tech counselor, Mike Hilger, stopped out this morning to take a look at the project. I’d asked him to come and take a look before I get to the point of buttoning up the forward top skin, since after it’s on, the only access to that area is from underneath the panel. I’m still going to wait awhile to put that skin on, since there are more things to be done up there (incl. brake lines & rudder cables).  I also wanted him to check out the FWF work I’d done so far.  Based on his comments, I’m on the right track and doing good work.  We talked about a few items and next steps for baffles, cowling, tips, and so on.

I let the folks at work know today that I’m hoping to take a couple blocks of time off during the summer…perhaps one early and one late, to do some hardcore shop time.  I feel like I can keep pretty good momentum going and get a lot done with a few full days to work.

Also called to request a bill of sale from Van’s today; they sent me a couple forms to fill out and return, then they’ll send it out.  Then, I’ll be ready to submit the FAA registration paperwork (my N-number reservation renewal is up at the end of July, so it makes as much sense to register instead of renewing this year).

Hope to order brake lines & harnesses tomorrow, and hopefully will confirm with Catto by the end of the week.

More work on baffles: finished fitting the right rear and riveted it together, including the flange that will feed the right heater box.  I need to figure out where to put the flange for the left heater, too, and there will be several blast tube flanges to mount, for mags and alternator.

With the rear baffles in place, the front sides were fit–those are two easy pieces.  Next step was the brackets that mount to the engine case bolts.  The rear bracket required a slight tweak in the injector line for the #4 cylinder to provide clearance there, and both engine lift straps had to be removed, since all the bolts are now in use to hold something or another.

Finally, worked on initial fitting of the bottom front sections, which form the bottom of the inlet ramps.  Worked out most of the kinks (again many fit-mark-remove-tweak-repeat steps) before calling it a night.

Continued baffle work — assembled the rear left side, and started fitting the rear right side.  It’s a lot of on-off-on-off work, to get everything fitting right.  A few more iterations and the right one should be good to go.

More work on baffles, fitting and drilling the rear left segment and oil cooler mount.  Almost ready to rivet.

Now that work has settled down for the summer (127 hours in the last two weeks…), I’m trying to get back into the swing of working in the shop.  Took the day off work and bounced around on a few little things…

• Finished drilling the hinges to the cowling and clecoed in place; test-fit the cowl and spinner backplate.
• Fabricated a mounting tray for the AFS magnetometers, one bulkhead behind the baggage wall.  Installed the D-sub connectors and tested that the EFIS was talking to the magnetometer, which it was.  Clecoed everything in place for now; will need to rivet the tray in place, and pick up some brass screws for mounting the sensor itself.
• Temporarily put in the lower spark plugs and attached the plug wires, so I could see where clearance would be needed in order to…
• Drilled and installed the EGT probes to the exhaust pipes.  Fit the mufflers to the crossover pipes and held them up with bungees for now.
• Removed the too-short mixture cable and replaced it with the new, longer one (48″) that arrived.  Fabricated a new bracket to secure the cabin ends of the control cables, and adjusted the linkages for proper throw on the quadrant and the fuel servo.
• Started work on the rear left engine baffle where the oil cooler attaches.  Fabricated a reinforcing angle for the baffle corner to avert vibration cracking, and a thicker doubler plate for the cooler itself.  Once the cooler was located on the baffle, trimmed away a portion of the aft flange on the cooler to provide clearance from the engine mount tube.
• Remade the fuel pump mount piece to accommodate the new version of the Andair fuel pump, which mounts a bit differently due to the now-integrated controller design.  The new mount is actually simpler; the overall pump length appears to be the same, so no adjustment of fuel lines will be needed.

Finished drilling the cowling hinges to the lower cowl, and clecoed them in place.  Cut the steel hinge pins and filed the insertion slot for them in the cowling.  Refit the top cowl in preparation for drilling the upper hinge half.

More cowling work.  Fabricated camloc mounting strips for the bottom edge, and drilled them in place.  Marked and cut the opening for the oil door.  Fit and trimmed the bottom cowl several times, matching the bottom edge, rear edge, and drilling the holes in the air inlets which join the upper and lower cowls.  Drilled the cowl to the vertical hinges that attach it to the firewall.  Once things fit decently, I marked and cut the overlap between top & bottom cowls, letting it fit close for now; later, it will be sanded back for a paint gap.  Cut and pre-drilled the hinge segments which join the cowls, and started to fit them to the lower cowl before calling it a night.