Brief Description: Fuel system calibration & misc finish work
I was up extremely early this morning, so I headed out to the hangar before sunrise to hopefully finish up the list of items remaining. During yesterday’s marathon session, I had figured out the leaky right brake pedal was due to a bad fitting coming from the brake reservoir. To fix this I needed a brass ferrule that I could fortunately procure at my favorite Menard’s. While I was there I also picked up a grease gun to use for greasing the nose gear fitting and future prop servicing. I started the morning by using Aeroshell 5 grease on the nose gear and by the end of the day I had finished up the following tasks: • Replaced the fitting on the left brake pad with a new one and using Tom’s favorite TiteSeal for the thread sealant. As I was installing the fitting, I made sure to carefully clean the threads with MEK and even ran a 1/8” pipe tap through the housing to clean out any debris and ensure the threads were true. I then moved to the right brake pedals and replaced the bad line with new ¼” tubing and the new ferrule. Once this was done I bled the brakes (again) and was rewarded with no leaks…finally! • Pulled the airplane out and did an engine run to check the ADHRS vibration calibration box and ensure that I could get the prop to cycle. The prop cycled at 1500 RPM, so I now know that the installation was correct. I also filmed the run to check the spinner balance and it looks good to me. • Added baffle fabric to the inlets and trimmed the remaining fabric to get the best possible fit. I think the rest of the baffle work will have to be finished once I start getting an idea of how well the cylinders are cooling in flight. • Added 13 gallons of fuel to the right wing, and 10 gallons to the left. No leaks (yea!), but there is a calibration issue with the left side, so that will require some troubleshooting as I move into flight test phase. I finished up by installing some heat reflective material on the lower cowling to protect the fiberglass where the exhaust pipes come in closest contact.
