Put on the brakes!

6.7 hrs
Went out this morning to do a couple of items, looked up, and it was 1 o'clock. Missed going to a bbq at friends house. Dang. Letting the kit control too much of my life.

Pulled all brake pedal hardware. Lot of little nuts and bolts, and by now you have to be creative about where to find them. The mysterious bag 619 is listed only as "spare assembly hardware". When low on 960-10L thin washers, you can find them in 619.

Preassemble master cylinders, mark and drill the 6117A brake side plates. I have a feeling I get to do this again. I drilled the side plates to get the brake pedals to the same relative position with the rudder pedal frames. But I realized later that this is not going to work.



Fit the the rudder pedal frames to the 6116 bearing blocks.
Fit to the aux longerons.

Remove aux longerons, match drill for bearing blocks. Reinstall the aux longerons and then bolt the pedal frames and bearing blocks on. It fits! The right pedal is a bit tight, but that'll get worked out in the wash.

Trim 6118 rudder pedal brace. Fit 6118 to firewall and match drill.

Cut 6115 bearing block in half, match drill to 6118 brace. Then bolt it on. About this time I realized that when the bottom of the rudder pedals are lined up as they would be for a neutral position, then the right and left pedals have different angles with respect to your feet. Since I lined the brake pedals up with the rudder frame, then my current setting for the brake pedals will be different between left and right foot. That's why I think I will need to redo two of the 6117A brake pedal side plates.

Tomorrow I'll have to assemble it and see how far off it is.

7.5 hrs, 4 rivets
Actually got to set some rivets today. It's been over three weeks since the last rivet.

Primed the 9101, 996B and 996C parts. Riveted them together and clecoed back on to the forward fuselage. Match drilled the 9101/713 aux longerons, and drilled couple of holes in the 9101/917 lower longerons just to hold things in alignment.



Then started on the brake pedals. Edge deburred all the parts, and made the angles. Match drilled everything, deburred, and countersunk. This all took quite a bit of time.



Then started fitting the brake pedals to the rudder pedal frames.

Here's where I learned something. I had bought AN3-56 bolts at Oshkosh. They were put into service here. Except that they weren't quite right. They would not fit the AN3 nuts that come with the kit, and they wouldn't go through the holes drilled in the rudder pedal frame. The threads were right, but they were just a touch too big in spots.

I noticed that they had an X on the end. Not sure what that means, but if it's like golf balls, then these are factory rejects. These were purchased from one of the small tent vendors in the flea market area at Oshkosh. Hmmm, so they deal in factory 2nds..... In some cases what they provide might be perfectly usable. But I spent about 2 hours trying to get those bolts to fit. Should have quit right away and just ordered good bolts from Aircraft Spruce. I managed to make them work, but I learned a lesson in the process.



After all that, I was a bit too pissed off to enjoy how cool the rudder/brake pedal assemblies look!

3.7 hrs
Finish fitting 9101.
Drill 9101 to 902 bulkheads.
Make spacer for right bulkhead/9101 gap
Finish fitting 996B spacers
Make and fit 996C angles
Drill 996C and B to 9101.
Countersink 996B
Pull brake pedal parts.

.8 hrs
fitting 9101 and 976 spacers

1.7 hrs
Finish deburring 9101's, aft canopy deck, bellcrank parts.

Start fitting right 9101. Lots of edge radius work required for this.

1.3 hrs
Got a couple of presents today.
My new autopilot! It's a DigiTrak II-VSG. Two servos, mounting brackets, and a SteinAir wiring harness.
Thanks, Stein!



Match drilled the 902 bulkhead, drilled for the nutplates and rudder cable bushings, deburred.

Started edge deburring a few more parts, starting with the aft canopy deck.

.7 hrs
Very light day in the garage. Did get to fly this morning.

Fit the 902 bulkheads and adjusted square to the centerline. Clecoed in place.
Then pulled some of the upcoming parts, like the 9101 and 996 spacer stock. Bag 1982
is in the bottom of the parts bin and it's always a challenge to find it.