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Today's main mission was to get the project ready for the first engine start. I had tomorrow as the date I wanted to do it set for a few weeks now. Everything so far has been working out to make that a reality. First things first - I needed to remove the cover I had on the air intake.  I also removed the covers on the exhaust pipes and breather tube.  I started out today by re-routing the emag plug wires. I think they need to be trimmed and re-terminated eventually, but they are fine for the first start.  I timed both the EMAG and MAG today, and torqued the nuts holding them down.  Next I filled up the oil sump with 6Q of mineral oil and removed the top plugs. I double check everything and hopped in the cockpit and hit the magic "START" button. Sure enough the prop started rotating. Immediately I saw oil pressure and engine RPM's. I let the engine spin for 30 seconds (limit for starter) to allow some additional oil to lubricate the system. It was also great to see the RPM indication to let me know my tachometer wiring was correct. A big thanks to Mike Rollison, Jack Savage, Bill Rogers and Tim Mooney for their help this weekend to get me to this point! With that out of the way, the next thing to do was install the fuel system. I installed and torqued all of the fittings. Only thing left was to put some gas in her and run some through the system. My first fillup.  And my first receipt. Ouch!  I put about 2 gallons of fuel into the right tank. I disconnected the fuel inlet tube from the fuel controller and ran it into the portable gas tank.   I ran the fuel pump (oops, forgot to select the proper tank at first) and looked for fuel flow. Sure enough not after too long I was seeing 40 GPM through the system. I ran the right tank dry. Next I did the same with the left tank, except I put all 5 gallons of fuel in it and only ran about 1 gallon through the system. I did this to clear out any contamination that could possibly of been in the fuel lines.  I reconnected the input line to the fuel controller and connected an AN4 fitting to the output of the fuel controller, right before the spider.  Once again I emptied it back into the portable tank.  Here I was looking for fuel pressure. Sure enough, it climbed right up there before I advanced the mixture knob and the fuel flow increased.  A few weeks ago I made a marker beacon antenna by stripping the shield off of some RG400. I think it was 40" long or so.  I put 2 layers of 2" glass over the antenna to bond it to the wingtip.  I made these a few weeks ago too -- two plastic blocks, about 1/2" thick, used to secure the wingtip hinges.  I drilled them into the wingtip ribs.  And then installed a nutplate on the back of the wingtip rib.  Lastly tonight I broke out the proseal and riveted the the rib to the wingtip. 
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Last Modified: October 5, 2024 |