Today I was having the hangar roof resealed so I continued working on various firewall forward tasks in a shortened session. The first thing I did was to tighten the lower left nut on the standby alternator—the same nut that had given me so many fits last weekend. This particular job was only possible due to the acquisition of a Rapco 7/16” vacuum pump wrench, which as the picture shows, is specifically designed to fit into the inaccessible space underneath the vacuum pump (or standby alternator). Although there is literally no way of properly torquing this nut, I tightened it securely and believe it will be close enough. This is one of the few tools I have that will probably never be used again, but if needed, I have it.
After finishing with the standby alternator, I moved to installation of the left side GPS antenna tray and associated wire bundle organization required with that. I attached the TNC connector to the RG 400 for the XM weather and radio, added a few zip ties here and there for security, and then installed the antenna. With that I was out of time and called it a day.
