After the problems with last week’s fuel fitting leaks, I took out the seat channel so that we could inspect the fittings. It was a good job that I did because one of the fittings in the tee that has the sump on it was loose. After a check that everything was tight, gasoline was poured into the tank, and drained from the sump without any leaks.
As with the other side, no fuel flows to the gascolator on the firewall without applying some air pressure into the tank. My (uninformed) thought is that we just aren’t putting enough gas in there for gravity to do the work, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that once the fuel pump is on, we’ll have our very own OPEC going on at the front.
Which brings me to this. During the week I ordered the much needed battery charger and throttle cable sheathing which were guaranteed to arrive on Friday. Well, I don’t what the heck UPS is doing but they aren’t here yet, they seem to be stuck in transit between Ontario and Ontario (hmm… I’m assuming this were both in CA but maybe one is Canada).
So without these we could not run the fuel pump, measure the fuel flow, measure the oil pressure or rig the throttle cables. Instead Allen set to work on tieing up the electrical wires and got a pretty good start on it. I put the map box in the console. There are no pictures of these events.
The map box should have been powder coated, you can see some of it through a gap around the access door. Not sure what to do, maybe just some grey paint.
Today I was back for a short while to do a few things. I removed all the pink string around the various hoses and installed some stand offs
I bought some longer bolts for the battery so that both cables will fit and still be able to tighten the bolt.
I also swapped out the phillips head bolt that we were using for the ground wire with a hex head, much easier to tighten that with a screwdriver (head was already getting stripped).
After that I re-riveted the pilot seat channel to the fuselage and got the seat base ready to rivet
It felt good to be riveting again, I understand riveting.
The seat base all installed
and finally the seat
I sat in it for a while. It is amazing what a few rivets can do to make something strong. It actually felt like it would hold my weight. For a few minutes anyway. I wish I had taken the cushions with me for a proper sit down.
While sat down, I messed with the control grip for a while to get an idea which direction I liked it in, need to install the mounting screw for that.
Hopefully the charger will come this week (if it doesn’t I will order another one that will) and we can get back in business this weekend. A couple more weekends to get things installed and measured and I think we’ll be in a position to start the engine if we want.