I'm waiting on a few items so I can keep working on the firewall forward. I was originally going to wait to add a backup alternator until after I was flying and decided whether or not I'd do much IFR flying. Since the whole point of this plane is to travel, I changed my mind and went ahead and sprung for the second alternator now though. It'll only take one time of being stranded in the middle of nowhere because of a dead alternator for Rose to decide traveling is no fun! So I purchased a gear driven backup alternator that goes on the accessory pad on the back of the engine. It puts out 30 amps, which is more than enough to run virtually everything in the plane should the primary alternator die.
The alternator arrived yesterday, but I still need to get a few other things before I can install it (like Loctite 518 gasket maker - even though the alternator comes with a gasket, you're still supposed to use a thin layer of something like Loctite 518 on it as well).
I've been putting off setting up the cabin heat cable for a year. It was a chicken or the egg problem - it would have been great to set it up while I had full access to the area, but I didn't want to drill holes and run the control cable before I knew what wires would be where. Now that my wiring is finished though, I have to deal with the contortions required to work down near the floor. It was slow going, but a success by the end of the day.
First I needed to get the vertical wire bundles against the firewall routed just right so they could make the transition from underneath the tunnel cover. The wire bundles are pretty stiff and didn't want to bend tight enough. I loosened up the wrap a bit, which helped. I temporarily clecoed the cover in place. The top of the cover where it meets the sides of the firewall recess is a pretty bad fit and has a 1/8" gap. This area is the cabin heat box, so I'll eventually close up the gap with some foil tape or black RTV to keep the heat where it's supposed to be.
The heat control cable winds its way from the panel through the subpanel and down to the flapper of the heat box. I drilled a hole in the vertical firewall brace - the cable runs through this hole to enter the enclosed heat area under the tunnel cover. I didn't like having the cable flopping around, so added an adel clamp on the diagonal firewall brace. I used the existing fuel line adel clamp screw in the big corner brace to attach a standoff bracket and another clamp there as well. The clamps are just a hair too big for the cable, so Van's recommends adding safety wire to secure it at the clamps. Seems to work pretty well.
The cable also got a clamp on one of the bolts that connects the actual heat box to the forward side of the firewall. I cut the cable to length and ran the core wire through a drilled bolt and attached the bolt to the flapper arm. That was easier said than done! With all of my wiring in place, as well as the panel itself, getting two arms down to near the floor was tight!
That was enough contorting for the day. Just one cable run, but still felt good to finally get it checked off the list.
