Wheels & Canopy Prep

The proseal is almost dry enough to start messing with the canopy, but I want to give it another day to set up so it doesn't attract dust and shavings from the process of fitting the canopy.  I've been told that it's best not to let the tire tubes stay folded up for too long, so I decided to assemble the main wheels for a change of pace.  The wheels are made up of two halves with the brake rotor bolted to one side.  The bolts holding the halves together are set super close to the wall of the rotor, and I couldn't get a socket or wrench on them.  I ended up grinding down the wall of an old socket until it was super thin.  The bolts are only torqued to 100 in/lbs, so the socket doesn't have to be all that beefy to do its job.

I covered the inside of the tire with talc to help the tube slip in and keep it from catching and creasing during the assembly process.  Then I put one half of the wheel in place (it has a notch cut out for the valve stem, and the valve stem has a nut on it to center it in the notch).

The other wheel half went on next with the brake rotor set on/in it.  The bolts go through the rotor and both wheel halves and were torqued to 100 in/lbs.  I inflated and deflated the tire a number of times to help the tube settle into place.  The first tire took a while to figure out since there are zero instructions about how to do it other than a short blurb that came from the manufacturer (Matco).  The second tire was done in a matter of minutes. I won't add the brakes or anything until the plane is up on the gear.

I'm slowly checking off all of the random things I can do while I'm psyching myself up for the canopy fitting!  There is a never ending list of course, but I'm ready to get going with the canopy.  Once done with that, then the departure from the Van's instructions begins (electrical and firewall forward).  There's just not much guidance from Van's once you get beyond the basic structure.  I'm definitely thankful for all of the information online these days!

I set the canopy frame back on the plane and pinned the hinges.  In order to make sure everything is in its final position, I had to put the front fuselage skin back on as well.  This skin is still an excruciatingly tight fit though, so I decided to leave the outside most holes unclecoed and just strap it down for now.  If I cleco those longeron holes too many more times, they will start to elongate from having to pull them into place.

The canopy doesn't come with any layout on it that would aid cutting it symmetrically at the front (it starts with a somewhat straight center line then curves around to the canopy rails).  I'm not sure if it'll end up helping or not,  but I printed out some grid paper and taped it to the glare shield.  The lines don't come together perfectly, especially at the aft edge since the glare shield isn't flat, but I think it'll still help me get in the ballpark of symmetry from side to side.

And here it is!  There is a lot of material to trim from the front and back.  The first step will be to trim all of the excess material off that is there to help in the forming process.  Once the basic shape is set, then it's iterative trimming of the front to get that shape correct, following by splitting the front canopy from the rear window material.  Only after you've done that will the front canopy set down on the roll bar enough to trim it to final size.