Forward Covers (2)

I dug through my boxes, and in the box with my fuel boost pump, I found additional instructions for how to modify the tunnel cover to accommodate the pump and filter.  Then it was off to the parts pile to locate the parts for it.  Whereas the normal cover for carbureted engines is just a single sheet that goes from the firewall back to the fuel selector cover to cover just the fuel lines going forward, the setup for the fuel injected engine requires a larger aft box to also cover the fuel pump and filter.  When I bought the pump kit, it came with a few extra parts that I finally found this morning after realizing there must be something additional I was missing in the standard directions.

To start, the long tunnel cover had to be cut and mated up to a new aft piece that is made of much heavier aluminum and has brackets cut out and bent where the pump and filter will set and be clamped down.  I also had to cut a big opening in the aft portion of the front tunnel sheet to allow the fuel lines to dive down from the pump and go under the cover.

The box that covers the fuel selector valve and all of the associated plumbing also needed to have a big hole cut into the front of it to allow routing of the fuel lines to the pump/filter.

Here's the overall setup with the additional pump/filter cover.  The part that took hours was after I removed it from the plane.  The modification requires a bunch of nutplates to be laid out and riveted on so all of this will be "easily" removable.  Nutplates are easy, but just very fiddly and take a while, between drilling them with a jig, dimpling all of the parts and riveting them on.

The sides of the tunnel covers attach to the floor stiffener ribs with nutplates and screws.  I was able to match drill through the pieces uses a 1/8" bit in my angle drill, but I don't have the right size drill bit for a #8 screw (a threaded bit that will go in the angle drill at least), so I couldn't finish the holes in the floor stiffeners.  Threaded bits are harder to come by and pretty pricey, so I ordered a hex head bit in a fractional size that is close enough to the typical #19 to work.  I have a hex head angle attachment that I can use for my drill.  It's much bigger than the pneumatic angle drill, but it'll be good enough to upsize the holes I already drilled.

I pulled all of the parts out of the plane, and after all of the nutplates were finished, I threw them on the pile for priming.  That's going to be a loooong day this coming spring!  Next up, the housing and setup for the electric flaps.