Category: Panel

Panel component installation continued…

Pilot’s cabin heat control cable installed. More fun working under the panel – this time, facedown!

My striping idea didn’t work out as well in practice as I’d hoped, so I cleaned off the canopy jettison handle and shot the business end solid red.

As it happens, most of this will have to be stripped off (everything that sits forward of the panel in flight), since the paint is sufficiently thick as to get hung up in the snap bushing. I probably should’ve just left it white. A word to the wise…

Passenger’s cabin heat control cable installed. The prop control cable has also found its home and is fully connected to the governor and appears to be functional. I’ll have to confirm, of course, that I’m getting the expected maximum RPM during the first flight.

Also visible is the installed canopy jettison handle, here in its full aft, dump the canopy, mode. It’s easy to see the streaks made in the red paint by passing through the snap bushing. I’m going to strip most of the paint off and only leave the handle and perhaps half an inch of the shaft red.

The business end of the prop cable attached to the governor. All jam nuts have been tightened and the cotter pin installed. Ready for flight!

Panel in process

Most of the left-side (and all of the central) wires now zip-tied up and out of the way. The Comm2/IBBS tray has been drilled to mount the backup alternator’s external regulator; installation is awaiting the arrival of two K1000-3 nutplates. It seems as though one is always awaiting the delivery of something or other on a project such as this…

Canopy jettison handle has been taped and painted. The idea was a sort of striped effect on the business end, but we’ll see how it turns out.

The panel has been drilled for the canopy jettison handle and its supporting snap bushing is now in place. The control cable bracket has been drilled for cables and mounted to the panel. Hope I don’t hit my head on the damn thing while working under the panel for the next few weeks.

BTW, for anyone interested in future, the sizes of the cable holes (for the stock Van’s cables) are, from left to right: ½”, ⅜”, ¾”, and ¾”.

For a guy of my size and limited flexibility, having to work on my back under there with my hands up over my head in a range of awkward angles is pure misery. Mark my words: I will NEVER do this again. Just ask Jeanie…

Panel component installation progress

Transponder mounting plate in progress.

Transponder tray attached to the mounting plate.

Transponder tray and mounting plate clamped in place for drilling.

Transponder and backplate attached to the mounting tray and clecoed in place.

Left-side wiring has now been largely cleaned up. The white wire bundle still dangling to the left is Stein’s main buss – I’ll attach it to the forward face of the sub-panel next week once I receive the ANL fuses, etc. required for my dual-alternator configuration. The output wire from the shunt will run to the buss bar’s open post and it’ll just be easier to attach before installing it up on the sub-panel.

The white wire trailing to the right is the OAT probe which will have to be brought down behind the breaker panel and through the central tunnel until exiting the left side of the airplane with the main harness and making its way to the first inspection panel in the left wing. I hope the probe wiring is long enough…

Next up will be pulling the breaker panel, trimming the edges of the support bracket to clear the breaker buss bar hardware on the backside of the panel, and applying some adhesive rubber insulation to the inside of the bracket. Once that’s done, the breaker panel will be reinstalled and the Left & Right main harnesses will be zip-tied up out of the way along with the long breaker pigtail.

Then, onto the right side dangling bits. I’m leaving next Friday for the F1 race in Austin, so Thursday is my deadline to get all of this done. We’ll see how I do…