Category: Finish Kit

Engine mount, landing gear, and oil cooler

Brian 0 Comment Landing Gear

Looking to get the project ready to transport to the hangar, I started to work on the engine mount and landing gear. First step was to go through the process of installing the engine mount weldments. From memory, I believe the process was to drill one of the top mounting holes, then bolt the mount to the firewall. I also traced out where the insulation needed to be cut back so the engine mount will sit flush against the firewall. I then used the engine mount itself as a drill guide to drill the second top mounting bolt. With both top locations bolted down, I then drilled the final four mounting location.

Then it’s time to remove, deburr, clean up the insulation, etc. I then jumped ahead to build my oil cooler mount. Since I decided to go with an air conditioner, I had elected to go with an upgrade oil cooler from airflow system. This did require a minor update to the oil cooler mount to fit the larger oil cooler. I also installed a “turning vane” in the mount to help direct airflow at the advice of Airflow systems. I also traced out the mounting for the oil-cooler so I could trim back the insulation where I’m going to rivet the oil cooler down.

With everything cleaned up and deburred, I then permanently mounted the engine mount to the airframe with the help of some friends. This gave me very little room to move around the garage for a while.

Next step was to start mounting the landing gear to the fuse. Took me a bit to come up with a good way to lift the fuse high enough to allow me to slide the landing gear legs in. I’m glossing over the build of the wheels and fairing brackets a bit. I used the Matco wheels and basically followed their instructions for assembly. Even so I think I still didn’t fully ‘understand’ what they were saying and had to take the wheels off a few times to get everything on correctly.

My final solution was to use my motorcycle jack and some 2×4 and 2×6 for cribbing. It was a little sketchy, but it did the job. My family helped keep an eye on things so nothing tipped over while I jacked the fuse up, installed the landing gear and got it lowered back to the ground.

About this time, I realized that I could now no longer get the airplane out of the garage. I also couldn’t move it around at all and decided to try to make something so I could move the plane side to side. I found some pillow block bearings that looked like they could allow me to make a “skate”. I know others did something similar that looked a lot nicer. This was really only needed to get me through a few months before I moved to the hangar. With the help of Amazon, some spare lumber and casters, I swapped the tires, for the skates. Now I could shift the airplane around a bit depending on where I was working.

I started to look at the nose gear only to realize that the threads on the end of the nose wheel fork were damaged. After to talking to Vans, they suggested I try to file the threads so I could get the nut started or other “solutions”. I ended up getting a thread repair tool from Amazon that worked well to repair the damaged threads. After using it, I was finally able to get a nut installed.

Next few steps are installation of windows, windshield, and getting everything ready to move to the airport.

Cabin Top and Doors

Brian 0 Comment Cabin Top, Doors

With the cabin top installed, I can start looking at some of the next items on the to-do list. To start, I decided to temporarily install my sun visors to make sure that they fit as expected. This was really a silly exercise as I had done some preliminary testing, but it’s always nice to see that things worked as expected.

I do realize I have to swing them down a bit to get past the switchpods, but that’s not a huge deal. If it really does bother me in the future, I can always cut the plexi down a bit on that corner.

With that fun step done, I then switched focus to the doors. Since I’m going to do the McMaster Carr door seals, I needed to close the hinge pocket at the top of the door. To do this, I made some pre-preg fiberglass strips that I was able to install over the hinge pockets. I used clamps to keep these strips from sagging and allowed them to cure. I then used some Aeropoxy Light to feather the edges and make this change appear seamless. I also put some filler over the blind rivets for the door strut bracket just to make things look a little nicer. After a few rounds of filler and sanding, I sprayed it with grey primer and called it done. (I’ll come back to paint with the same interior paint I used in the cabin once I’m 100% done working on the doors).

  • Making the coverplates for the door hinges
  • Cover plates installed and test fit. You can just see the nutplates I used.
  • Beginning to blend everything with filler
  • Primed, looks good.

With the doors installed on the cabin top, it’s time to start working on blending the doors to the cabin top. Being careful not to bond the doors to the cabin top, I begin to slightly build up the cabin top edges to match the door edges. Lots of sanding applying filler and sanding it away.

  • Hope the doors come apart once this cures!

I repeated this on the pilot side and overall things look a lot better. I’m not shooting for laser perfection, but looking good from a few feet away. Still have more work to do, but making progress!

Cabin Doors – Part 3

Brian 0 Comment Doors

I have completed most of the work on the doors at this point. I have successfully installed the 180 degree plane around kit as well as the Aerosport Products low profile handles. This was tricky and while I took some video and photos, I’ll point you to Ed Kranz’s video.

I had originally purchased some Amazon door locks for the baggage compartment and doors, however I was never able to get them to fit properly with the low-profile doors. Path of least resistance was to go ahead and special order a set of 4 matching locks from ACS. They fit perfectly with no issues!

I then started to work on the McMaster Door seal mod. Honestly I had a really hard time wrapping my mind around how this would work. I had the great idea to purchase some 1/4 weather strip to help visualize and possible help with molding the flange. I installed the weather strip where I thought the seal should meet with the door, spread some epoxy and flox around the lip around the door opening, and closed the door so it could set. (Hint: this may help, but it doesn’t release from epoxy. This lead to a minor panic attack). Ended up climbing in from the other side to cut / tear the weather strip and sanding out what was embedded in the epoxy. Ugh!

  • OMG, what did I do! Thought I accidentally bonded the door to the cabin!
  • This did not work as planed 🙁
  • After a lot of sanding, looking better.

At this point I realized I had trimmed my cabin top door flange a little too far back. To fix this, laid up some strips of fiberglass on the interior of the door flange (poorly I might add). Once that was cured, I built up the area with epoxy and flox using the previous strips to support everything. I learned from my previous mistake and this time used the weather strips but covered everything in packing tap. I then closed the door to give me the needed clearance between the cabin top and the door.

  • The edge of this mess is where the flange should be. 🙁
  • Go ahead and mock me, this looks horrible!
  • Fiberglass tape as a temp support so I can build up the flange
  • Fill this area with Flox and try again.
  • Epoxy and flox curing.
  • Notice I put packing tape on the weather strip this time. Lesson learned.
  • Success
  • Sharpie lines to show where to trim

With that adventure completed (at least on one door), I started the process of trimming all the excess. Cutoff wheel I used for original trimming of the flange worked perfect, followed by a lot of sanding of the interior to clean everything up. (Basically sanded away the fiberglass tape and some of the epoxy flox.). Wasted a bunch of supplies, but part of the learning process.

Not everything worked perfectly, had a few places where my new flange broke off while I was sanding. I just scarfed the surrounding area and built it up again. I’ll say that’s the one thing about fiberglass I do like, it’s not too hard to repair, it just takes time.

Oops, didn’t mean for that to break off.

With the door flanges build up to the correct width, I then moved on to using a length of the McMaster door seals as a mold to get the right depth for flange. I mixed more more epoxy and flox and using a piping bag I squeezed the mix into the seal. I then installed on the door flange and closed the door to allow to cure. This gave me a custom fit flange for the door seal. Once the entire opening was completed, I removed the cabin top to start finishing in inside.

Engine ordered and general updates

Brian 2 Comments Engine

So I finally broke down an ordered my engine. I had been chatting with Aerosport Power for a few months and was planning on visiting them to do the “Engine Build School” and actually build my engine, however due to the state of the world, this is just not possible. Sigh. I was extremely excited to do the build class, however after talking over things with Darren at Aerosport Power I decided to just order the engine and have it shipped to me.

The only possible silver lining is that I may be able to visit them once things calm down and do the build school eventually, even if it’s just on the shop teaching engine. Already have this on my list of things to do with the RV-10 once it’s done.

At this point I’m admitting that I’m just way behind in editing videos. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure if I’m going to post more videos. While this work from home situation has some benefits, I really just feel like I spend way too much time behind the monitor as it is. Maybe if things slow down a bit I’ll go back and try to edit some updates, but for now I’m just continuing to shoot some time lapse videos for my records and will continue to update this blog.

Currently I’m only making small progress on the build as I have a few big items on the to-do list. I have done some body work on the cabin top interior, installed the conduits on the door pillars and done some contouring and finishing work to try to make things look nice. I just got a shipment from AerosportProducts that included carpet, the interior panels, and the Lord adhesive for the overhead console and the windows. This was kinda holding me up for a few weeks.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get the overhead console installed this weekend, and work on getting the finishing work done on the cabin top. I also ordered the Blue Sky visors and working on a plan on how to mount them. Typically the mount to the door pillars, but since I installed a conduit there, I’ll need to create a mount-point somehow. This means I have to get creative with some fiberglass I guess.

I also think I will be moving to the airport in the next few months. Waiting on things to finalize out, but looks like I may be moving in November (around the time my engine is scheduled to be ready?). Timing may actually be perfect if all goes to plan.

Doors – Part 2

Brian 0 Comment Doors

With both doors bonded, I continue to work on the “fit and finish” part of making sure they sit flush to the cabin top. One difficulty I had was making sure I didn’t sand too much off the doors as I tried to get them fit. I finally broke down and made myself a tool to try to help speed the process up.

Home made Edge-finder

I decided to use some extra aluminum scrap and make a poor-mans edge finder so I could mark a rough outline of where I had to sand down to. Easy enough to make. Just take a strip of aluminum, fold in half. Drill a hole near the edge and then using some duck-bill pliers, bend the other half to line up with the hole. Bent part goes against the fuselage, and your sharpie goes in the hole. Should line up mostly – if adjust the bends.

This worked great to give me something cut/sand down too and really allowed me to speed things up. My first door took forever before I made this. The second door was just a few hours now that I knew what I was shooting for.

I also got a little aggressive with the belt sander on the door gutters and got them all sanded down appropriately for the McMaster Door seals. Only issue I can see at the moment is on the passenger side bottom sill. With the door closed, it doesn’t compress the door seal. I may have to sand / re-build up that area with fiberglass to get it to better compress against the door. That is the beauty of fiberglass, easy to fix things if you are willing to make it happen.

With the doors basically trimmed to size, I then cut off the alignment tabs so I can start mounting the doors to the hinges. With the tabs cut off, I end up having to do a bit more sanding to get all my edges even more beveled so the door sits flush (Oh so much sanding). These photos are from mid-June and even then the weather only allowed me to sand outside early in the mornings for an hour or so before it was miserable. I ended up throwing my hands up a bit and just used a dremel sanding drum and belt sander somewhat aggressively.

Once the doors really sat flush (or as close as I was able to get), I went to mount the hinges. Again, another mental block as this seemed like another big step. I really wasn’t. Study the plans so you understand what hinge part goes where. Cut the threads off the correct bolt, and use some shims to get the hinge aligned in the hinge pocket. It wasn’t really that bad. Only thing I had to do that wasn’t in the plans was sand a bit of relief on the side of the hinge where the “hinge” bolt sits to allow some movement to get the hinges aligned.

Then I get to crawl into the cabin with the door taped into place, and attach them to the hinges. Everything went according to plan and the doors were able to swing open on the hinges.

With the doors hinges installed, I can move to working on the overhead console and cleaning up the cabin top interior as well as trying to install the door handles and latching mechanism.