Empennage, rudder, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer continued…

Rudder bottom fairing and taillight complete.

Spinner backing plates ready for installation.

Spinner screw holes drilled up to #19.

Empennage tip fairings and spinner gap fillers ready for installation.

The tip fairings are definitely not perfect, but they’re perfectly airworthy, so I’m fine with moving forward at this point. So far as I’m concerned, getting them perfect falls under paint shop surface prep – and they’ll be paid plenty for the work.

Left horizontal stabilizer tip fairing riveted in place.

Right horizontal stabilizer tip fairing riveted in place.

Vertical stabilizer tip fairing riveted in place.

Spinner plate assembly and front bulkhead drilled for nutplates and countersunk.

Empennage, rudder, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer underway

Waiting for epoxy to set up after each operation caused some delays this week (plus, my compressor died and had to be replaced), so there are several days of progress represented in today’s update.

All three empennage tip fairings are shown here having received their initial internal flox fillets and fiberglass layups.

One of the spinner gap fillers shown here with its flox fixes in place. They came out pretty nice and should look fine once they’re primed and painted.

The other spinner gap filler shown here with its flox fixes in place. They came out pretty nice and should look fine once they’re primed and painted.

First post-sanding pass at fitting the left horizontal stabilizer tip fairing to clear the elevator counterweight arm.

First post-sanding pass at fitting the right horizontal stabilizer tip fairing to clear the elevator counterweight arm.

First post-sanding pass at fitting the vertical stabilizer tip fairing to clear the rudder counterweight arm.

Taillight installed and Molex connector fitted to the wiring harness.

Lots of micro slathered on in this (hopefully final) step. Some sanding tomorrow and another coat of filler primer should see these puppies ready for riveting. Hopefully.

Firewall forward components

Alternator mount bracket installed and safety-wired.

Alternator installed. Several of the bolts are yet to be final-torqued, as the alternator’s final position is determined after mounting the prop.

Best to drape the alternator belt roughly in place now, lest one forget it until after the prop bolts have been torqued.

Alternator power wire installed and secured.

The new prop emerging from its nest.

Ta-da! Seventy-four inches of Hartzell goodness…

Spinner plate and doubler ring in process…

Spinner plate rough cut accomplished.

Spinner plate, doubler ring, and front spinner bulkhead ready for priming.

Spinner plate, doubler ring, and front spinner bulkhead primed.

Spinner plate and doubler ring riveted.

Prop has been placed in the workshop to come up to temperature overnight.

It’ll be mounted tomorrow and torqued later in the week after the special extension crowfoot wrench arrives.

Firewall forward continued…

The last four (at least for now!) Adel clamps loosely installed.

Mixture cable bracket installed.

Starter wiring underway.

Starter wiring complete.

Starter wires secured.

Fuel injector servo as received.

Fuel injector servo mount ready for its gasket.

Fuel injector servo installed and torqued. Inlet and outlet lines have also been connected and torqued.

Fuel injector servo installed and torqued. Inlet and outlet lines have also been connected and torqued.

Fuel injector servo installed and torqued. Inlet and outlet lines have also been connected and torqued.