Day 173

What a week it has been. We spent a lot of time this week working to get the front steering gear, rudder, peddles and cables to all work with each other correctly. We noticed that the deflection from right to left was not the same when we would turn the front wheel. We went through everything, making sure we had assembled it correctly. We tried aligning the rod ends a bunch of different ways, but nothing was quite right. Or at least to us what seemed right. We even installed the virtual stabilizer and rudder to see their correlation.

After two days of going rounds with this we went to the Internet to see if anyone else had encountered a similar issue. What we eventually learned was Sling was aware of a slight deviation from side to side. They may fix it sometime, but for now it does not effect the plane’s maneuverability or handling in any adverse way, according to other pilots.

So long story short, how we had it before we started messing around with it was just fine. Oh well. We did get to dry fit the rudder and it controls, so that was good. Better to have tried to figure this out now while we still had some access to things, rather than later.

We got our high temp RTV gasket maker in so we were able to install our wire harness firewall pass-through plates. It turned out very well. We applied the RTV sealant to the firewall and then bolted the plates on, making sure everything squeezed out and made a good seal. This will not only hold the wires in place and keep them from rubbing, but will also make a good seal that will keep any exhaust from the motor getting into the cabin.

Once that was done we bolted our fuse box back on since we fixed the anti-vibration mounts that broke and got it all wired back up.

Our heater line junction pieces came this week so we also got them slid into the hoses so that when we get to finishing that system we will be able to hook the lines up.

We are so close to being able to install our front top skin! Hopefully be getting it on this next week!