Section 49 - Cooling complete - build time 1533 hrs

Pretty much the entire engine kit is finished. I just need to do the propeller and spinner. I've ordered the Avionics and except for paint that's the last big chunk of money for the project. The engine on this  plane is a very busy space. Most aircraft run a primitive Lycoming or Continental and the general idea is less stuff means less stuff to fail. This engine has oil cooling, water cooling, air cooling, electronic ignition, fuel rails and sensors, gear reduction and an integrated alternator / timing pickup. It's a nice package - but very busy for a small airplane. You might find this on larger / newer aircraft where the weight of redundant systems doesn't out weight their value. In any case, I'll be happy to fly behind it and have already signed up for the first maintenance class on this series of engines.

Lake Tahoe CA - 10.5 in the C152/G

The California Delta.

My busy little power plant.

Pretty happy how this came out. Took all morning to get the patterns for the foil just the way I wanted them.  It looks just like the book.

Air, Water, Oil cooling all hooked up.

Nice warm place for birds to build a nest.

100 plus hours to get to this point.

I'll be crawling around this thing for the rest of my life. Hope it always looks this good.

Engine Installed - Cowl Progress - build time 1440 hrs

I'm writing this update a bit behind schedule. Seems there's just not enough time for building a kit writing about it and keeping up with life. In any case the engine is on and now that it's nose heavy it's much more difficult to move around. I had to finally get out the tow bar to steer around the garage.
I'm about halfway through the cowl now and stopped to install the engine partly because the engine is in the way sitting in it's crate and because I want to have the aft spinner bulkhead installed so that I can use it to make sure the cowl is properly trimmed. I'm glad I did it this way although just trimming to the factory trim line would have worked.

Canopy, Engine and Paint - a busy week

This week the engine arrived from Vans. I drove to pick it up at the shipper because I didn't want to wait for them all day. The next day I couldn't wait to tear into the crate so I did the inventory and all parts were present. The engine looks sweet and the kit contains much more than I thought it would. I needed to get the engine kit here because while reading ahead for the cowl I noted there were parts that would go inside and the directions warned not to sand the cowl - leave it translucent so that you will be able to see through it to mount the cooling baffles. Once the cowl is finished the fuselage can go to paint.

The wings are in the hanger now along with the tail feathers and assorted stuff. The paint looks really nice. Everyone was commenting on the colors we used. It was always going to be blue and white and we were walking past the paint and Jaun picked up a can of gold and said what about this. We looked at the sample in the light and I said go for it. We pretty much made up the scheme and colors on the fly. I generally knew what I wanted and Jaun knocked it out of the park.

The canopy fiber glass is all trimmed out and sanded down. I have the first of what will be 5 coats of epoxy drying now. I'm really pleased with how it came out. It was a great part to build.

The engine crate took up the whole truck bed.

I've had this number reserved for a couple years now. Hope the FAA didn't give it away to someone else.

The paint really pops in the sun.

Pretty parts.

Getting help moving this stuff into the hanger.

The colors and scheme are perfect.

The Rotax 912 soon to be mounted.

Last shot of the canopy glass before it gets trimmed out.

After trimming. It came out great.

Canopy, Paint and Engine - build time 1394 hrs

A lot of stuff is coming together. I've finished laying down the fiber glass and resin. It's time to begin sanding and getting the final coats of resin on the glass for a smooth finish. Everyone is a bit anxious about this section but Vans has a really great, nearly 2 hour video on glassing a 14 that pretty much makes it simple. In the beginning it was a bit stressful but once you discover the pot life of the resin you begin to see how much time you have to work it in. Also, the peel ply is great stuff and I would highly recommend it.

This week I ordered the power plant. All that's left of the original kit is the cowl and the fuel tank. I plan on doing the tank while the plane is in paint and the cowl needs the engine before painting so I went ahead and ordered it. Should be 2 to 3 weeks they say. Hopefully there's no long wait for it but that amount of time is pretty much on target if I keep at it.

The wings, rudder, stabilator, flaperons, trim tabs and vertical stabilizer are all in paint. The primer and white are done for the most part and I went down to visit and lay out the 2nd and 3rd colors. We're going with a base white, Blue scallops on the wings and tail feathers with a gold accent. The size and shape of the scallops will be approximately what Vans paints on the SLSA's sans the gold stripe which will be about 3/4 inch. It should look very nice. The fuselage will be white on top and blue on bottom following a rolling pattern over the wings. It's coming together now. many many little parts making much bigger parts that are making one machine.

Sand paper will make this look pretty.

Peel Ply in action.

Right side glass. I'll be filling in the sag from the gap with micro balloons.

Two inch radius. Exactly as the plans say it should be.

Freshly painted stabilator. Added quite a bit of weight to it. The painter tried to keep the weight down.

Laying out the wings for the other colors.

All that hard work coming together.

Flaperon primed and ready for white.

Ready to glass the canopy - build time 1371 hrs

The Canopy is mounted and everything is coming along. It took a bit of time to get to this point as I was also trying to get the aft window sealed and installed. I took my time on the canopy because I didn't want to scratch or damage it. Also, it was cold and they are more brittle so I kept the shop warm. For those that use these blogs for tips two people would be better when it comes to handling the canopy. I don't have help waiting to spring into action so I just laid out some foam and carefully slipped it into place. I'm also putting in the seal kit so there's about 6 extra pages of stuff to be done during this chapter.

The aft window took three attempts to get it where I was satisfied. The first attempt was made using the one ounce bottles of pro seal and some West Marine syringes. I put it in and screwed it down and when I looked inside it looked terrible. There's about a 3/4 inch overlap between the window and the turtle deck. The turtle deck is white and the pro seal is black. You can see in the pic below that the pro seal didn't mush out because I didn't get enough in there. It set up fast and I pulled it out, cleaned it up and put it back in for a second attempt. On the second try I still couldn't get enough material to cover the over lap and the pro seal was setting up fast. I wen't about a 1/3 of the way around and called it. Up to this point I've only used the one ounce bottles of pro seal but I had the mid size pro seal that Vans sells that goes in the caulk gun. Vans had told me that the larger sizes of pro seal have a longer pot life and you could pretty much work with this stuff all day without any problem. I threw about 1/3 of it away but I'm happy with the seal now.

Next up is to cut the glass and start the layup. Progress.

Test fitting the canopy.

Everything aligned.

Carefully trying to get the holes lined up against the tube so when it's riveted it won't be under stress.

Everything drilled - getting closer to making this permanent.

Looks like it's all lined up.

Everything worked out. No Cracks and it's riveted on.

I decided to pro-seal the canopy to the side skirts. It just looked  like a place that would leak in the rain.

This is the first attempt at getting the aft window sealed. it just looked terrible and you would always see it. The second attempt wasn't any better.

Inside looking out. Feels good to sit in it with the canopy closed and latched.

Finally happy with the aft window seal. It came out nice.

Getting this to a place where I was happy with it took three weekends.

Next step it to break out the fiber glass.

Aft window seal after removing the tape.

Fairings Complete - Beginning the Canopy - build time 1314 hrs

     Finally finished with the wheel fairings. They took so long to complete because I had to jump around and deal with rigging the wings which meant they were coming out of the living room for the last time. I'm pretty happy with the fairings - it just takes time and a lot of sanding, install, check uninstall, sand...
     I also had to deal with the brakes which took a solid session. Both calipers were leaking at the pipe fitting. I used the same pipe sealer I've been using for years and used on the master cylinders (which didn't leak) but I think what happened is I just over thought the whole thing and didn't tighten them enough. I bought some Locktite 561 (I think that's the number) and they're pretty tight now. Also had a leak at the right Main Gear bracket where the brake line goes through it. Other that getting 5606 all over the place it wasn't too hard to fix. Again, I think I just didn't get them tight enough. I haven't pressure tested the brakes yet and I'll do that at some point when I get around to bleeding them again.

    The canopy is coming along. It seemed daunting at first but I watched the video on vans web of the RV14 layup and that instilled confidence. Also, most of the forum says it's no big deal. I've done layups with glass before and other than the mess it should be fine. For those that find these blogs helpful here's a tip. The construction manual says to sand or file the weld in the middle of the forward tube and then install the canopy frame and check for clearance of the tube to the instrument panel. Then says to carefully bend to meet spec. Well, I had about 3/8's to pull forward and I couldn't get it to move while in the down position as it ran into the panel. So I opened it and 'carefully' pulled down and heard a 'pop' - the weld in the middle of the tub where I filed it down cracked. So to future builder - sand / file the weld after you have the frame where you want it. It will be simple to fix but I'll have to truck it over to someone with a tig that can weld 6061.

    It took some time to prep the canopy. The hole for the latch is already there and the edges looked pretty good but after closer inspection I felt they needed to be dressed per section 5 so I tapped it all up, hit it with 80 grit to even it out and then 260 to finish it up. Happy with the edge and may pull the aft window out and touch it up.

Finally have the frame attached. It will go on and off many times before it's completed.

DOH! Don't dwell on it. Fix it and move on.

Getting this on and off by myself is a challenge. I'm keeping the shop nice and warm so it doesn't crack.

The Aft gap should be 1/32. That's going to be a challenge. I will also be installing the seal kit.

A Major Milestone: Off to Paint - build time 1290 hrs

    Today was a major day in the build. The wings, vertical stabilizer and rudder, horizontal stabilator and trim tabs and flapperons all went south with Juan to T&P Aero for paint. I may not see them again until they are painted but after painting the Cessna this year chances are that I'll be down there at some point making a decision or just checking things out.
    Building has been a bit slow as I had to jump around to get the parts ready for paint. The Flaperons needed to be rigged to the control arms and once they left the living room they weren't going back which meant they were in the way and had to be moved in and out of the shop to work on anything. Also, I put in the skin doublers and had to finish out the wing tip lights but I managed to get all that done while working through the wheel fairings. I'm pretty much done with the mains and close on the nose fairing. Fiberglass work is messy and takes time to get it right.
    Once the nose fairing is done I'm going after the canopy. I hope to finish that over the Christmas break and should be able to as long as I put in solid days. Only the cowl and the tank remain after that but there are always little things that need attention now.

These rivet needed to be filed down after being pulled.

Here's a shot before filing. The forums had lot's of folks that ran into this. Looking at the length of the rivet I suspect it's too long for the job thus the mandrel is breaking outside of the rivet.

Wing doubler attached.

Tip lights attached and ready for paint.

Packing up everything for the drive down to KSNS.

Close it up. I hope it doesn't take a spill. That's more than a years work in there.