Its getting cold out there!

As the title says I have had to turn the heater on in the garage a little lately.  I'm glad I am done with the canopy but I still have lots of fiberglass work to do and that is not nearly as much fun when you cant do the sanding outdoors.

So this week has been yet another in a long line of small projects.  Some pretty cool and others not so noteworthy, or at least picture worthy.  For example, I am including pictures of the panel lighting that I installed this week but not the exhaust alignment process I went through.  Its interesting to note that I frequently go back and look at older posts and realize how much I leave out.  A good example is the panel lighting that I put in this week.  Normally I would just show the picture and explain what it was, however there was a lot of work that went into getting that piece installed.  I had to fabricate, prime and paint the aluminum backing for the LED light strip.  Then I had to match drill the mounting holes to the holes in the glare shield mount (not an easy task).  Then I had to cut and bond the light strip to the aluminum backing.  And finally I had to run wires through the panel via a tiny hole at the very top that was a pain to drill.. route the wires down behind the panel to the dimmer controller (all of which required me to be on my back up under the panel)... and then tie wrap everything to make sure it was secure.  You can't see all of that in the picture.  Oh one more thing, I came along behind and squeezed a small dab of clear silicone sealant into the tiny hole I drilled in the panel so that the wires would not chafe (hole was too small for a grommet).  I guess the moral of the story is that there is always a lot I leave out on these posts.  :-)

Speaking of panel lighting...here it is all lit up.  This picture is looking up from the seat level.  When sitting in the airplane you can not see the lights as they are above and behind the lip on the glare shield pad.

This is the aluminum backing plate after priming, painting and attaching the LED light strip.

In this picture you can see the exhaust gas temperature (EGT) probes after I drilled and attached them to the exhaust pipes.  There is one probe for each exhaust pipe and the goal was to make the tip of each sit at about 2 3/4" down from the exhaust flange.

Here you can see the EGT probes, the lower spark plugs, and the Cylinder heat temperature (CHT) probes are all wired up.  After I took this picture I also ran the #4 gauge wires to the alternator and the starter.  Those are some heavy duty wires!

The part that I am holding is a one way check valve (yea yea I know all check valves are one way).  It is suppose to mount on the tailpipe but as you can see from the little yellow lines I drew there is not enough room for it.  I sent an email to the manufacturer to see if maybe they could send me one that has more of an angle to it.

Here you can see the right side exhaust hangars that I installed.  This consists of a bracket on the tailpipe, four stainless tubes with flattened ends and a piece of rubber hose to connect two rods into a semi rigid hangar.  The stainless tubes are flared slightly before sliding the rubber hose and clamping to prevent them from separating.

The left yellow circle shows the Adel clamp and outboard stainless connection that attaches to the motor mount.  The middle yellow circle shows where the two stainless tubes meet (with a small gap between them) and are then captured by the rubber hose and hose clamps.

And in this picture you see where the hangar attaches to the engine (right circle).

Going through my checklist of items to complete or verify I came across this little bugger.  Van's recommends that you safety wire the flap arm to the motor.  I couldn't remember if I had done that when I installed the whole thing so since I couldn't see in there without standing on my head in the baggage compartment I used my camera to snap this picture.  How did we ever survive without our cell phones?

I started putting the baffles back in again but this time I had to cut the holes for the spark plug wires (The oblong hole) and also the hole for the cabin air heat (the one with the screen)

This picture shows the last sensor wired up. The manifold pressure sensor.  This one took a little longer because I had to Tee it off for the PMags.

I had to remove the intercylinder baffle on the right side so that I could drill the hole to run the fuel line that goes from the servo to the flow divider (the spider looking thing in the picture).

And the final picture for the week.  I installed these two aluminum flanges.  They will be used to run cooling air to the PMags.