I need to do some catching up from the last week. I got a call from Continental/Titan a few weeks ago letting me know that they were starting my engine assembly. One painful check later, and last week I had it sitting in my garage. It's been bagged/pickled for storage, so I'm just going to leave it as-is until I'm ready to actually hang it. This is the the Titan IO-340 with low compression (~174 hp) to allow for the use of mogas. It's set up for a fixed pitch prop, but has the hollow crank, so if I ever decide to go to a constant speed prop it would be a fairly easy swap.
Since the interior is painted (at least the areas that will show), I bought some low tack vinyl and covered up the areas that would be prone to getting damaged while I crawl around the plane. The vinyl is pretty light weight, but I think it'll do the job.
The center section bulkhead caps can finally get pop riveted in place.
The next big assembly is going to be the canopy, which means the top front fuselage skin needs to go back on to ensure everything is rigid before fitting the canopy frame. This skin was every bit as difficult to get on as it was the last time! The trick is a couple of straps and heat, and even with that it was a fight. The only portion that didn't line up well was the outer left aft side that lays on the sub panel. I had to drill new holes into the sub panel flange (just the last 3). When the skin comes off again, I'll put some doublers in place on the flange to make up for the goofy holes.
I can finally start putting in parts for good - the left side canopy latch mechanism is done, although I still need to get the teleflex cable adjusted before I put the cover plate on. I can't adjust the cable until the horizontal seat back brace is in place though, which I can't put in until the top skin is riveted on.
The latch itself on the right side is in place, but the support for the cable will have to wait for the seat back brace installation.
The next step in fitting the canopy frame is to fill those pesky gaps between the skin and the frame. I decided to try using aluminum epoxy putty, but no local stores had it, so now I'm playing the waiting game. Since I had Dad here to help, we decided to tackle the aft top skin on the tailcone. I don't want to completely enclose the tailcone yet simply because it'll be a little easier to run wiring if it's open. I didn't want to waste having a second set of hands though, so we glued some wire mounts onto the bottom skin (the tail light and elevator trim wires will be attached to these). Even with the aft most top skin on, I should be able to reach in from each end and run the wires.
We laid boards onto the bulkheads in the tailcone, put some padding down and I crawled in with a bucking bar. Dad used the rivet gun on the outside and I bucked from the inside. In a few hours we had a completed skin. One more down! It looks great. The one area I will probably fix just for aesthetics is the rivet line of the bulkhead in the middle of the skin. The bulkhead flange is just a hair short, so the skin pulled down at the rivet line. The rivets are set great, but it creates kind of a slight cinched waist look. I'll put some very light filler on that line before I paint to flatten it out.
It's really starting to look like a plane!
