Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

Yep, still pulling wires. Will it ever end? This is another one of those things that just requires that you get out and work on the project at least some each day. I think Tanya started to feel sorry for me. She volunteered to pull some wires and I happily obliged. Pretty easy stuff: “Take this wire and pull it from A to B following these other wires.” She pulled a bunch of antenna wires.
I looked at the fuel gauge sender wire placement and decided to punch it through the side skin grommet right next to the supply line being careful that the hole is completely surrounded by rubber. I also decided to mount the AOA computer. I added some #8 nutplates to the mounting brackets that I had previously made. I also got the AOA wiring harness out. It had the gear indicator wired (which I don’t need) but didn’t have the push-to-test lead installed. I just removed the gear wire and moved it to the PTT position and relabeled it.
Stein said he was sending out my audio panel yesterday, so hopefully I’ll have it early next week and can begin mounting the radios.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

I wired up the autopilot pitch servo. I had ordered the twisted a/p wire from Stein. It is great to be able to pull all seven wires at once in a single cable. I soldered wires to the 9 pin d-sub connector at the servo. I was soldering along one wire at a time, noting on my schematic which color wires I was soldering on to each pin. I soldered on the last wire but still had one pin left to connect. This was a momentary head scratcher. I’m sure I had one of those classic dumbfounded looks on my face with the soldering iron in one hand ready to solder the next wire. This servo is a super-duper-whiz-bang servo that senses out of trim conditions for annunciation. That requires an “extra” wire compared to the roll servo. So I ran another wire and closed up the connector shell.
I finally finished up the wiring for my EFIS aux battery. I’m wiring it into my efis1 progressive transfer three position switch. This switch will be down off, middle efis1 and ahars on powered from the avionics buss, and up will be add the aux battery. I’m using an inline fuse from the battery to the switch and am charging it through a diode from the main battery always hot buss.
I got around to physically verifying that all of the wires that I intend to run out to each wing will fit in the snap bushings in the outer skin in the fuselage and the conduit in the wings. That is a major relief. I’m not planning on wing root disconnects so it is about time to start running wires and simply coiling them for the wings. The one thing that I haven’t done yet is run any antenna wires since they will begin consuming major snap bushing real estate. I have most of the power control wires run through the firewall to the contactors. I have not terminated any of the wires to the switches on the instrument panel yet, they are all just hanging there labeled and ready.
Lastly, I terminated all of the annunciator lamp wires into a 10 circuit c-grid SL (locking) connector for later connection to the lamps after painting the panel.

In other news: I’m still waiting on my GRT order through Steinair. That order was placed on 5/16/06, so it has been about 16 weeks so far. I called GRT a couple of weeks ago and was told that my order is about 1 month from being shipped. I noticed that Todd from GRT made a comment on a news group last week that almost all of their EFIS1 orders ship within 8-12 weeks. This feeds the frustration a little. So I figure I’ll start calling them for a status check at least bi-weekly. Update: I called GRT again today and Sandy said my order was still about four weeks out. Hmm… that is the same thing she said a couple of weeks ago.
Tanya is progressing in her pilot training and is getting close to her first solo. I went out this past weekend and did my BFR in a C-150. I had forgotten just how slow those things are. This was my first flight in over a year. It is time to start flying a lot more in the next few months in prep for transition training.

 

  

  

  

 

I drilled the engine mount to the firewall. I went through two good 3/8″ drill bits. My process was: first I drilled the top right hole where where the firewall was pre-punched. I put a bolt in that hole and positioned the top left hole as close as possible to the pre-punched hole in the firewall. I held the engine mount at the correct position for the second hole primarily with a small block of wood wedged between the bottom tube and the bottom firewall flange. I also used some duct tape to hold it still. After the second top hole was drilled, I examined the much talked about space between the center two mount points and the firewall. I concluded that mine would not require any shims as the space was just a little over 1/16″ and I could just about deflect the whole mount that much by hand just by pushing on it. So I drilled the center mount holes next since once they were pulled up against the firewall, the two outer bottom holes would be deflected outboard just a hair. There is a definite assembly sequence here: Bolts in the top holes, then the bottom center holes, then the bottom outboard holes. I’m quite happy with how this went except for the fact that drilling six holes that large (3/8″) in steel with an electric drill is a real pain.

The reason I mounted the engine mount was to see if I could use it as an anchor point for the #6 wire that I ran from the battery contactor to the main buss. Sure enough, I’ll secure it to the lower engine mount tube. This is not final assembly of the engine mount just yet. It came right back off in the interest of space since I’ve been working on wiring just behind the firewall quite a bit. I’m still spending a lot of time just pulling and terminating wires. Most of the basic ship’s power wire is in place.

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

I started looking at mounting the engine mount last night. I looked at the instructions for the first time in many months to see what they had to say about this procedure. There are all of one or two vague sentences on this. Oh well, I’ll just stick it up front somewhere near the undersized pre drilled holes :).

more tinkering with the relay trim.