Sealed and Filled Upper Cowl

I’ve been working 7 days a week right now, so I’ve hardly had any time to work on the plane. I was working from home today though, so I managed to squeegee on a few coats of raw epoxy on the upper cowl.  This fills all of the pinholes and seals the surface.  I’ll sand this flat and then apply some epoxy primer that will be the finish coat until the plane goes for paint.

Worked on Oil Door

The clearance around the oil door was a little tight.  I opened it up to prevent it from catching and to allow room for paint.

I’ll probably open this up a little more, but this is enough to allow it to open and close smoothly.

Painted Plenum

I’ve hardly had any time to work on the plane lately, but I wanted to wrap up painting the plenum.  After cleaning it thoroughly, I shot a few coats of epoxy paint that matches the powder coat.  There are still some minor scratches that show through the paint, but I’m going to call this good.

Worked on Canopy Fit

I had previously set the gap between the forward skin and canopy skin at about 1/32″, but this was causing the canopy skin to catch on the forward skin as the canopy was opening.  I opened this up to about 1/16″ and that works much better.

I also fit the weatherstripping along the sides of the cowl.  The canopy fits much more tightly with this in place and requires it to be pulled down firmly in order to be latched.  I shouldn’t have any problems with air leaking around the sides with this in place.

Started Riveting Final Fuselage Skin

With the brake leak wrapped up, there’s no reason not to rivet the remaining fuselage skin.  I managed to get most of it done solo, but I’ll need a riveting partner to do the remaining rivets.  I’m not in any rush though since the open ends will make the final canopy fitting easier.

Fixed Brake Leak and Replaced Upper Oil Cooler Line

I’ve been absolutely swamped at work, so I’ve had very little time for the project.  Unfortunately, this is not going to improve anytime soon.  I did get a few new hoses from Brett at Bonaco, so I wanted to install them and see if this fixed my brake leak.  I installed the new brake lines and bled the system using the new brake bleeding system I picked up from Aircraft Tool Supply.  I pressurized the system and applied the parking brake.  As far as I can tell, the brake leak is fixed.

I also replaced the upper oil cooler hose.  The previous one I received from Bonaco had a problem that caused the hose to get twisted when I tightened it down.  Brett sent me a new hose for free, so I put that on and torqued everything down.