I decided to get the seat rails installed today since my servos didn’t arrive today. I got the rails installed for the most part. I am missing one of the nuts that dropped in the fuselage so I’ll have to dig around and try to find that. And then one of the nutplates broke while I was installing the screw into it so I’ll have to replace that. I am almost done with getting the rails installed though.
I didn’t get much done today but I got something. I bolted the control column to the elevator mid push tube assembly and got the safety wire in place. I then measured the control sticks to make sure they were equal distance. I adjusted it a bit as it was 3/32 out from each other comparing the top and bottom measurements. I ordered both of the remaining servos to get that done. I wanted to make sure all of the control surface components were ordered and installed so I could make sure everything played well together. I am still contemplating on whether I’m going to have aileron trim but for how simple it is I might just do it. The last thing I need to do for this section is to put the elevator bell crank in its neutral position and validate that the control column is at the correct location and this section will be done.
Vans gave me an answer that I would need to massage it. Apparently these parts have issues as I’ve seen some on the Facebook RV-10 group all the way back to 2021. So I shaved the amount of material necessary off the rear portion of the control stick base and made sure that the brass bushing was slightly longer on both ends so that the base wouldn’t come into contact with the control column. I got everything bolted together and all I need to do when I get back from my son’s band competition this weekend is to hookup the elevator push rods and do the final adjustments to make sure the controls are in proper order and lock them down and put the tamper wax seal on all of the nuts.
Most of my time tonight was searching for all the hardware as I had not put these bags of hardware into their own bins since I was out of space and I knew they were all specific to the front seats. But I got it all sorted out and got everything bolted together. Luckily I did wait to tighten everything as there was a future step that said to tighten everything LOL. Now I hope to get the seat backs attached tomorrow and all of the contents of the recline housing installed.
I got everything riveted and bolted for the seat pans. I left all of the bolts loose still as they instructed but I honestly believe they should already be tightened at this point. Maybe I missed a step where you tighten it LOL I’ll have to go back through and double check tomorrow.
Since I’m waiting on Vans to report back on the control column, and everything else required too much time to start working on, I decided to start working on the front seats. I can get them ready and put them to the side when I’m done with them. I should only have another hour or two to put into them when I get back from Utah, as everything is pretty much just simple bolts and a few rivets for the bottom and rear pans to the frames. That will be one more section done and then I can wrap up the control column section when I get back (hopefully) and then attach the upper forward fuselage so that I can start working on the cabin top which will probably take me months to finish due to the amount of work that goes into it.
I decided I wanted to go ahead and get the scat tubes installed so I had a good idea of how much room I have left in the center. It didn’t take too long to do as there’s really not much to do here. I just need to add the RTV on the rear scat tube to protect it from abrasion which I need to see what they mean by that. Do I need to slather the top of the scat tube near the rear where it will make contact? Or what? lol It doesn’t provide alot of details on that so I’ll figure it out when I get to that stage of the game.
I finished the last two lines of the fuel system this morning. The one that took the longest was the short one. Those are seriously the hardest ones to make because there is no room for error, and trying to measure the distance between offsetting lines is difficult because you have to determine how much more is needed between the devices at an angle. I’m pretty sure there’s some geometry I could have brought into play here but I didn’t want to deal with that lol.
The other thing is that the gas tank switch was not the same size as everything else. I think the rod was just slightly larger than it was supposed to be. I had to file down the tabs on the cover to allow it to fit through and then I ended up finally just having to sand down the outside of the rod so that the handle would fit on it loose enough to allow for movement. I might have to do more of it down the road as I just don’t like the way it feels still. It’s just too difficult to move. I might end up going with the andair solution down the road because this is such a hodgepodge
The auxiliary fuel pump, filter, and transducer have arrived. I need to get bolts now for the transducer but I used some extra long bolts to at least hold it in place for now while I do fuel lines. Trying to make small fuel lines out of hard lines is such a pain LOL I’m still working on the last two fuel lines which goes between the fuel pump and the transducer and then the transducer to the firewall connection point. Hopefully I’ll get that done tomorrow but it is taking quite a bit of time to bend them to just the right angle with such a small piece of tube.
