Engine prop governor cover, fuel servo mounting (start) | 11.26.2020

Happy Thanksgiving! Since we did our Thanksgiving meal the day before, we worked on the plane some.

So... we made a mistake and installed the mount on the engine prior to installing one tiny little fitting. Unfortunately, that means that we have to unmount the engine from the plane, and unmount the mount from the engine to install the oil pressure transducer fitting. Whoops.

Thankfully, while it's off, we can mount the prop governor cover plate which arrived from Van's Aircraft (hey, they were the cheapest cover plate) and the fuel servo right angle adapter, so at least it's not a total waste.

The little tiny fitting in the center of this pic is the one that can't be screwed in with the mount on.

Once that fitting was in place, I installed the prop governor cover plate. This was ordered from Van's Aircraft, since it's a flat piece of aluminum with some holes in it, and they had the cheapest ones. I guess I can say this plane is basically an RV now, right?

After that, I worked on installing the right angle fuel servo adapter. As you can see in the picture below, the typical install puts the fuel servo straight back off the engine. Velocity provides a right angle adapter with the engine install kit that kicks the servo off to the copilot's side so it doesn't hit the firewall.

Removed.

Once removed, I installed the right angle adapter, but realized that the studs to attach the right angle adapter were too short to install the adapter and mount the mixture and throttle control brackets like the plans called for. I pulled it back off and ordered longer studs to accommodate. I did get the servo mounted to the right angle adapter though. Just waiting on parts, as usual. :)

Fuel servo mounted to right angle adapter.

After that, I moved on to installing the oil line bracket that secures the oil lines to the firewall. The plans call for this to be attached to the firewall with #10 screws or something, but where I wanted to put it perfectly intersected with one of the sump tank bolts (the sump tank is inside the fuselage), so I just drilled a hole in the bracket and subbed out a longer bolt for the sump tank bolt.

Once that bolt was loosely holding the bracket in place, I cut the lines to length, flared the tubing, and attached to the fittings.

Before cutting

Once the unions were attached, the fittings are safety wired in place so they don't move.

I drilled a second hole through the firewall for a second bolt later.

After that, the garage was re-organized to make room to verify the wing construction and install the ailerons and rudders.

Getting extra tight in the garage.

- Jeff