July 4th, 2015 - oil cooler, sensors, anl & ammeter shunt, carb install, misc

Had the opportunity to assist some friends with the inspection of their Velocity.  N10CN is now an airplane.  Congrats Connie and Nick!

Can you say paperwork exercise?  Nick said he had to sign less paper when he bought a house.

Note - Nick had to document nearly every serial number on this dude.  Make sure you keep track or it may hold things up.  I just spent a good bit of yesterday taking a picture of and writing down every serial number and part number I could find.

Bobby working on the inspection checklist.  8 pages (if I counted right) of things he has to make note of or in some way document.  He said when he did his in 1974 it was only one page. :<

 Everything on the aircraft was wide open so the DAR could get to everything.  He probably spend the better part of 2.5 to 3 hours crawling around and looking at everything.

From N10CN Nick and Connie's Velocity becomes an airplane

Nick getting ready for the taxi inspection.  To get to this point Roger, Nick Rodney and I spent about 45 minutes putting everything back together and making sure it was all secure.

From N10CN Nick and Connie's Velocity becomes an airplane

The coveted piece of paper.  Congrats guys.  No squawks!

From N10CN Nick and Connie's Velocity becomes an airplane

Back to working on mine.

I've been working to get most of the stuff forward of the firewall in accessible/reasonable locations so I can know where to put stuff behind the firewall (engine monitor, forest of ground tabs, etc).  There's a lot of stuff forward that is either not included in the plans at all (Vans' being an advocate of day VFR only) or only vaguely specified.

I have full engine monitoring (CHT, EGT, manifold/oil/fuel pressure, oil/carb temperature, fuel flow, tach, volts/amps, etc.  More than a dozen sensors, all of which require at least one wire and several have more than one.  All that has to be wired and conveyed safely through the firewall.  My take (we'll see how it goes) is to work backwards from the sensor towards the firewall, and then tie it all together.

At the moment I plan to bring nearly all of it through a 1" Safe-air stainless firewall penetration on the upper left side, but I want to get it in before I punch that hole through.

Prior to doing the sensors, a lot of immoveable (or nearly so) stuff needs to go in.  Fuel lines, oil lines, exhaust, etc.

Installed the oil breather tube - basically a NAPA elbow hose connected to a fat curved aluminum pipe that takes the blow-by down to the lower cowl.  The elbow has to be cut to fit, and a nutplate gets installed lower down to hold the tube in place.

From Finish Kit 2

Nutplate installed and tube trial fitted.  I'm going to try to have it dump onto the exhaust to hopefully mostly burn it off and not foul the belly.

From Finish Kit 2

Exit end of the tube just above the exhaust.  This will be moved/trimmed/angled later I'm sure.

From Finish Kit 2

Installed the oil and fuel pressure sensors on the manifold.  Oil pressure is the upper and connects to a flow limiting AN fitting.  Same deal for the fuel pressure sensor (lower), which tees off the output side of the engine driven fuel pump.  The upper opening on the manifold will probably be used for manifold pressure plumbing.

From Finish Kit 2

Oil lines installed.  The upper left blue fitting is input from the engine driven pump output side.  The lower hose (kind of hidden behind the engine mount, which is the light grey powder coated tubes) goes back to the engine return fitting.

From Finish Kit 2

Installed the carburetor.  The power coated bracket is secured between the sump and carb - sandwiched by gaskets on either side.  The bracket provides a secure mounting location for the mixture and throttle cables, which have not been connected yet.  Throttle is upper left, mixture is below it.

From Finish Kit 2

My engine is a Superior O-320-D1A, so it can go either constant speed or fixed pitch.  I ordered it set up for fixed pitch, but when I got it the governor mount and oil line were in place and plumbed, so I knew I needed to check.  Also, when I went to run the fuel supply from the gascolator to the engine driven pump, the governor mount was in the way.

I called Aerosport Power and ordered a cover for the governor mounting (it's a special part of course).  I also went ahead and ordered the primer lines since I really don't like the copper ones I got from Van's.

From Finish Kit 2

When we were doing the annual on our Cherokee we had to do the crank inspection A/D and removed the crank plug.  :) Yet another case of fortuitous timing.  I had to do the same exact procedure to make sure my engine was set up for fixed pitch per Lycoming SI 1435.

To do that you have to pull the plug in the end of the crankshaft - punch a hole in it and remove it.  This is what it looked like.

Note: make sure you have a bucket or something under the hole!  :)  Guess who didn't?  There isn't a lot of oil in there, but when it's running on the garage floor it sure seems like a lot.

From Finish Kit 2

So guess what was at the back?  An unpierced plug.  Glad I didn't trust the guy that set it up - if you don't relieve the pressure it will blow out the crank plug and all your oil with it.

I didn't have a long enough punch to safely reach the plug, so I rigged up a rube goldberg solution using a short punch with a hex head on it, a 1/4" socket extension and matching socket and a lot of tape to keep it from coming adrift.

From Finish Kit 2

There is a tube inside that conducts the oil in from the pressure side of the governor - do *not* damage this dude.  If you do it's teardown time and a lot of $$$.

From Finish Kit 2

Here's the finished product.  Note - some plugs have an allen screw and you just back it out.  Seems like a no brainer, but mine didn't have that in spite of it being brand new.  Our 40 year old Cherokee did though.  Go figure.

From Finish Kit 2

Picked up an ANL fuse block (below) last week for the alternator feed line.  The upper part with the heavy copper fittings is the Dynon ammeter shunt.  They go in series on the alternator output cable.

From Finish Kit 2

I plan on mounting those right below the batter and battery contactor - it's open real estate, isn't in the way, and the runs are very close so I can just use heavy copper jumpers for the connections.

From Finish Kit 2

Nutplates installed and the fuse block and shunt bolted to the firewall.

From Finish Kit 2

Saturday, July 4th, 2015

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.