Fuel Pump, Almost 14 Mod, Brakes, ELT Mount

Back at the brake lines - they have to have some sort of mount to keep them from flopping around.  I glued down zip tie mounts, wrapped some self fusing silicone tape around each line just to give a little protection from the zip ties (strange stuff - not sticky at all, but as soon as it touches itself, it is almost like it's a single piece) and zip tied them in place.

The spiderweb of lines for the fuel filter and boost pump were next. Having pre-made lines that fit perfectly made this super quick and easy.

I zip tied the flexible fuel line that goes up to the firewall, but I am not going to drill the hole through the firewall for a fitting until I know for sure what firewall layout I need for the engine.

Back to the seat back brace, the modification that never seems to end.  I picked up some structural screws for mounting the brace to the outside longeron (these screws have non-threaded portions on the shank to better fit the holes and provide more strength).  I drilled out one of the existing rivet holes in the longeron to fit a screw/bolt, then put a second new hole in the longeron for another screw and bolt.  There are zero instructions for how much is necessary, so I just went off of what I've seen others do.  The two screws on each side in the longeron are probably enough, but I also wanted one a little inboard to hold the cap to the brace.  I didn't mount anything permanently for now, but figured out all of the lengths and sizes of screws I want to use once it's time to finalize it all.  Given that the brace can come out, I'll probably wait to put it in permanently until I've painted the interior next spring, just to make painting easier.

I had to tweak a number of spots on the outside aluminum caps to make them fit right (ground away places so rivets would clear and bolts would fit).  They're just aesthetic, which made it pretty easy to modify the unseen portions to make them work.  I scratched my head over the center post cap for quite a while.  The holes in it are in standard places, but are just off enough from my holes and nutplates that things don't fit quite right.  That's the downside of them trying to match hole locations that are just measured out by the builder vs prepunched.  After a lot of back and forth and enlarging some holes in the side covers, I finally got it sorted out.  The important thing I have to remember now is that it works okay as long as I screw the cap to the flap housing first and only bolt it to the cross brace after all other screws are in.

A while back I ordered an ELT mount from Van's.  I don't plan on buying the actual ELT for a while yet, but may as well figure out the bracket. It mounts to the J channels just behind the baggage bulkhead.  As is usually the case with everything, I found a standard "well that won't work" issue right off the bat - there is no way to get at the bottom J channel to drill holes into the bracket.  With the tight curve on the fuselage skin, even my angle drill is too big to drill up from the bottom side.  I think what I'll end up doing is taking a small strip of aluminum and making a template out of it with the matching holes from the bracket.  I can lay the template on the top side of the J channel and drill down vs having to drill up. Maybe tomorrow.

At this stage, I don't think there's any reason not to install the brake/rudder assembly in the fuselage.  I'm not going to tighten anything down until I have a better idea of how far forward or aft I want the assembly to set though.  It's a little hard to know for sure without seats.  The one thing I did notice once I had it all in the fuselage is that I made the plastic line that goes between the left and right side a little too short.  It's all going to depend on how much deflection the pedals need with full rudder.  If the line ends up being too short, at least it's a pretty simply swap to put a new one in.