Got the old firewall, cowl egress tunnel, and boot cowls fitted and cleco'd to the new fuselage. I will be making new boot cowls and egress but wanted to fit the old ones prior to using them as patterns. Over all they fit pretty well considering every maule is different. I'm doing all this prior to installing controls and such up front so I can have better access. When I have all the new ones made, I'll set them aside and install all the control components, panel, etc.

All those skins and firewall in place:


First up was the "Engine Air Egress Tunnel" as maule calls it, the green forward belly skin in that picture^. Mine was painted galvanized steel as Maule did back in the day. These days Maule uses stainless so I made that switch. I have access to a small 3-in-1 sheet metal brake but these bends wouldn't work in that so did it by hand. Turned out pretty well, fit the first try. Aft rivet holes are match drilled in place.









Also, I got a kick out of this. Noticed that my tubing flare tool and my M6 flap handle use the same grip. Hell yeah, spare parts.


Took a break tonight to fly with a student in his v tail bonanza. Good stuff.

In the past 72 hours I have gotten a lot better with sheet metal work... Still never enough cleco's in the world as far as I'm concerned.

Got the boot cowls done, with the exception of final debur/prep/paint and riveting them on. That will all come later.

It all starts like this...


I fit the old boot cowls to the fuselage prior to duplicating them so there was lots of notes, markings, etc on them to make changes when I made new ones.


Putting them on. This was after getting the forward and bottom holes lined up, then I match drilled the holes along the door frame. In these pics the copilot side doesn't have the stiffening bend in the top yet so the top edge is a little curved up. I thought it would be better to do that after making sure the holes fit but that was dumb. On the pilot side I bent it prior to fitting and it worked better.




Complete pilot side. Had to steal cleco's from the firewall rivets to use elsewhere. Have an order of more arriving tomorrow.


Satisfying...


All the forward sheet metal cleco'd in place. I put the panel structure in to make sure the clearances and everything was good.

Less than 4 weeks until I leave for Alaska for 4 months....

Today's agenda was getting the old fuselage out and into long term (forever?) storage. Made room for my parts collection. Also knocked out the boot cowl window. Much easier to do it when you can remove the boot cowl than cutting it in-place like I did on the M7. Made some doubler angles out of 0.032. Also probably my best luck working with acrylic so far. I used a score-and-break method for the first time for all 4 edges which worked surprisingly well and made a clean edge.





The blue hand punch in this picture is the MVP of sheet metal work. Quick, clean, perfect holes every time, 6 size options.




If all this fresh new metal on a 40 year old airplane doesn't get you turned on, I'm not sure what will.

Nice work, fun to follow along.

Question, I have never flown a Maule with the windows by the feet, do they work? Are they worth installing?

Kurt

G44 wrote:Nice work, fun to follow along.

Question, I have never flown a Maule with the windows by the feet, do they work? Are they worth installing?

Kurt

I like them. Gives the cockpit a more open feel. The biggest blockage of the view is the copilot yoke which I keep out of the plane anyway. It's nice on rough surfaces to see where your tire is heading which is normally a blind spot. In flight it's just more view of the ground.

Still waiting for parts from powdercoat for the control column, rudder pedal tubes, flap handle, etc which is holding me up a little in the controls/cables area. Figured I'd move to the panel for a bit.

Today I started mounting the radio racks onto the panel frames so I can start planning the wiring harnesses and all. Empty holes on right are altimeter and VSI. EDM900 bottom left. Center bottom will stay blank in case I want another AV30 later. Aera660 up top in center stack. Haven't chosen an intercom but might put it in the black space below transponder. That's exactly the height of a PM3000 (1.25").

Very nice! Simple but complete panel, and light.

I’ve never been a big fan of Maule’s workmanship, but a VERY nice place I ferried and checked a guy out in was an M-6 that had been gone through, as you’re doing. It was a great airplane, and a super performer. You’re going to have a real winner in all categories when you’re done: Great performance and quality finish.

One thing I’d suggest strongly: double the rivets in the wing skins. There are nowhere enough rivets in top skins of Maule wings. Look at top skins on Maules and you’ll often see smoking rivets. That M-6 had the number of top skin rivets increased….not quite doubled, but close.

MTV

asa wrote:

Very nice.

Thanks for the kind words. Here's some more complete pictures of the test fit process.





Pretty tight in a few spots. I'll have to move my radios out 0.25" to accommodate the cooling fan on the GTR 225. I had the faceplate flush with the panel previously. All my left side instruments clear, and test fitted the AV30 in the bottom hole to make sure it would work there. Those things are tiny so they fit about anywhere.




Started thinking about my removable switch/CB panels. Since the lower panel is not removable once in place (without removing ALL engine controls, yokes, etc), all the electrical components will be on these. One on the left will be my main power bus with switches and CBs. There's an avionics power CB switch on the left that will send power to the avionics power bus over on the copilot side. The center area of the panel near engine controls won't have any electrical.

My first thought was to include the mag switch on the removable panel however I have since changed my mind. I'm going to mount it hard to the lower panel instead, I mean really how often does anyone mess with their ignition switch?

If it were me I'd leave the key switch on the removable panel. You really won't end up pulling it much either but it's still nice to have it easily accessible, and I'd prefer my key switch that way as well.
Looking great!

FWIW I prefer an off-left-right-both ignition switch, with a separate starter button.,

hotrod180 wrote:FWIW I prefer an off-left-right-both ignition switch, with a separate starter button.,

Me too - I like to crank with mags off after an oil change.

A1Skinner wrote:If it were me I'd leave the key switch on the removable panel. You really won't end up pulling it much either but it's still nice to have it easily accessible, and I'd prefer my key switch that way as well.
Looking great!

I appreciate that David and now I agree. Keeping it in the access panel. I figured out my sizing and basically everything left of pilot yoke and everything right of copilot yoke will be the panel. That also allows me to have the same mounting hole pattern, looks symmetric, etc - all things I like. Got the copilot side close to done. Waiting on some rivets for the nut plates, and have to drill the large holes for USB and 12V outlets to the right of the avionics CB's, wheneverI choose the usb/12v outlets I want. I'm thinking the second USB outlet will be up on the glareshield for inreach, etc.



Got the left side measurments corrected so re-did it. I also decided to change from stock maule switches to breaker switchs (like the one shown) because a couple of the maule ones were sort of loose in the back somewhere. Ordered those other switches.



Replacing the oleo boots. The old ones were literally falling apart. When you touch/move them, material comes off.

daedaluscan wrote:

hotrod180 wrote:FWIW I prefer an off-left-right-both ignition switch, with a separate starter button.,

Me too - I like to crank with mags off after an oil change.

Thanks for the input! After owning planes both ways, I can't really say I have a strong preference but I definitely see the argument for a starter button for various reasons. Keeping the way it is for now.

It's pretty easy to manually ground the p-leads to do this, though right?

Just so I'm clear, the reason to crank the engine with the mags off after an oil change is to make sure the oil pump is primed before it's fired and running right? How many rotations does it usually take?

asa wrote:

daedaluscan wrote:

hotrod180 wrote:FWIW I prefer an off-left-right-both ignition switch, with a separate starter button.,

Me too - I like to crank with mags off after an oil change.

Thanks for the input! After owning planes both ways, I can't really say I have a strong preference but I definitely see the argument for a starter button for various reasons. Keeping the way it is for now.

Thats my theory. Who knows if it actually helps.
When I got my engine zero timed I pre oiled with hot oil. Pressure came up instantly.

Moving forward with this panel layout for the time being. Copilot upper panel is blank except the headset jacks. Probably won't get to wiring before I leave for alaska except I may start on the power distribution (simple) side of things. Don't want to leave for 4 months in the middle of building complicated harnesses.







Put some primer on the inside of the belly skin so will rivet that on with the oleo boots and should have the plane on it's gear later in the week.

A couple of the extra post lights from the original panel placed above each corner of the switches aimed down and in would finish it off nicely.

Controls components finally back from powdercoat. Installed rudder bar/pedals, control column, assembled flap lever assembly.

Very nice. Are you wiring the edm 900 and the com radio yourself? I have wired the edm but I have not ever tried a com radio yet.

Barrakudaman wrote:Very nice. Are you wiring the edm 900 and the com radio yourself? I have wired the edm but I have not ever tried a com radio yet.

Yeah I'm doing all wiring myself. Com should be simpler than edm. I think the most compicated harness is the intercom, and that's the one where you'll get interference if you don't do it right.

asa wrote:

Barrakudaman wrote:Very nice. Are you wiring the edm 900 and the com radio yourself? I have wired the edm but I have not ever tried a com radio yet.

Yeah I'm doing all wiring myself. Com should be simpler than edm. I think the most compicated harness is the intercom, and that's the one where you'll get interference if you don't do it right.

Having wired all three of those, I concur. My EDM 350 was simple to wire, my radio was also pretty easy to re-wire (even building a new antenna cable wasn’t hard), though I did that after I’d finished the majority of my ICS rework. But rewiring (and adding the other 2 seats) to my 4-place intercom was the hardest. Definitely not rocket science, but getting the shielding right took me some time. It was also the first time I’d used shielded wire too, so there was a learning curve.

It’s worth the effort to do it right though. Every time I flip my avionics bus on and hear silence despite my strobes flashing I smile.