Did the install of the hydraulic parking brake mod tonight. It uses a valve like ACA had on my scout, rather than the standard maule method of a plate that jams the master cylinder shaft which they say is prone to accidental engagement. Since the valve is inline, is requires a couple extra hoses so made those from aeroquip 303 and replaced all the other brake lines while I was at it. First time building hoses but wasn't bad with the proper tools. ATS sells the mandrels for $20 rather than the $150 that the aeroquip ones cost.

Still need to rig the control cable to operate the valve. This mod would be a huge pain in the ass if the firewall was in place.

Put the plane on its tailwheel (was on a stand) so I could put on the rudder so I could build the rudder cables in place. I overthought it of course.. do I build it with turnbuckle in the middle of it's range, or do I put turn buckle towards one end since it's more likely that I'll need to tighten it later... probably would've turned out the exact same either way but the rudder/pedals/cables are now rigged correctly which feels nice. Put the firewall/egress on to make sure I wasn't hitting the pedals or brake lines on anything and made sure the rudder hit its stops before the pedals hit theirs .Getting accustomed to melting holes in my oratex, too

I wonder if that valve parking brake mod could be applied to a Cessna 180? A minor alteration you think? Is that valve a standard part and where did you source it?

That's good info about the ATS mandrels. I was looking at the Spruce catalog trying to decide to build 303 cables with hard lines down my 180 gear legs again, or just do the whole gear leg with 606 and reusable aeroquip fittings that I don't think require a mandrel to do correctly.

Not sure about the approval but I also think the Cessna stock system isn’t a bad system. Valve is a standard part made by Gerdes - I found this one used on eBay. ACA puts them in their new planes so I’m sure they have a source for new.

The reusable fittings for the stainless braided lines are crazy expensive. I would personally lean towards 303 and rigid tube if I were you. Probably a difference of hundreds of dollars and no real benefit. I think the 606 fittings are like $75 each rather than $15.

I like the 303 internal to the plane because they won’t chafe/abrade the inside of the skins if they contact. My airframes Alaska landing gear has braided lines running down it but I think rigid aluminum would’ve been fine.

Test fit old aileron loop cable to make sure all is good before I recreate it on the bench with new cable. Spoiler - all was good.



Rivetted belly skin onto fuselage. Ended up priming the inside of this panel, exterior will be bare aluminum. Mounted landing gear and oleos. Mounted flap handle/ratchet assembly as well as elevator push rod and bellcrank.

Today was wheels and brakes. Got the wheels and calipers mounted and filled the system with fluid. Having a hell of a time getting the right brake to bleed properly, left is good. The copilot right pedal is firm but pilot is soft so I'm thinking theres air bubbles between the two. Will try to take off the cylinders and bleed it with them strung up vertically. Sure is nice to not have a firewall and boot cowl in place for this kind of work. Thought I had a couple leaks but in reality the only leak was in my brain and a call to Andy Young fixed all that.

Looks like a bug on those long legs.


Big fan of Maule's new style axle nut and clip. No cotter pin required.


Rigged the control for hydraulic parking brake so I could test it out. Works like a charm, very satisfying.


Filling its veins with the blood of christ.


Moved to other end of airplane and ran the wires in the rudder. Trying to be forward thinking so I did a power, ground, and a 2conductor shielded. TailbeaconX would require all of these. Normal nav light or tailbeacon would of course just use the power/ground. I think I'll do a molex connector between the fuselage and rudder with heat shrink over it to protect from weather.

I’m really enjoying watching his project come together. You are doing really nice work!

Thank you!

I've mostly wrapped up the significant work in preparation for leaving town this week. Probably no updates until I'm back in October. Got a little time today so I made a tray for altitude encoder and added a rear radio support. Hoping to hit the panel work hard in October.



Going to miss working on this all summer. I've enjoyed it more than I could've imagined before I started. She's a beaut

....

Hope you have a great summer up in Alaska, Asa. Fly safe!

Looks like it’s going to be a beauty asa.

I’m sure it’s tough to leave it but you will think through a lot of things over the summer. I often do well by leaving a project for a while and coming back to it.

Double post

I'm back bitches.

Yesterday was my first day back from Alaska for the season, so time to dig back into the project. I had a lot of momentum going in the spring so hoping I can build that back up. First thing was inventorying all the parts I received while I was gone. A 4 month break was actually nice in that it let lots of long lead items show up, and I also would order things while I was in Alaska if I found good deals.

Right before I left (and of course after I had reinstalled it), I found that my right brake master cylinder shaft had an ever so slight bend in it. It was one of the older ones with a smaller diameter grooved shaft, where bending is apparently common. Only knew to check after Jeremy mentioned it to me - so thanks for that. Ordered a new one from Grove before I left for Alaska so I went ahead and threw it on and re-bled the brakes today. This time the brake bled very easily unlike in the spring. As nice as the new cylinder is, it's tempting to just order another for the left, but I'll refrain.


One exciting thing that showed up over the summer was my EDM900. I'm trying to do all the panel wiring and such over the next month so I want to get everything mounted in the panel soon. Over the summer I did a lot of thinking and decided to move the EDM to the top of the radio stack, and move the Aera660 over to directly in front of the pilot, in portrait mode. Tomorrow I'm hoping to cut the final-ish left side panel so I can get wire lengths and such.

asa wrote:I'm back bitches.

Yesterday was my first day back from Alaska for the season, so time to dig back into the project. I had a lot of momentum going in the spring so hoping I can build that back up. First thing was inventorying all the parts I received while I was gone. A 4 month break was actually nice in that it let lots of long lead items show up, and I also would order things while I was in Alaska if I found good deals.

Right before I left (and of course after I had reinstalled it), I found that my right brake master cylinder shaft had an ever so slight bend in it. It was one of the older ones with a smaller diameter grooved shaft, where bending is apparently common. Only knew to check after Jeremy mentioned it to me - so thanks for that. Ordered a new one from Grove before I left for Alaska so I went ahead and threw it on and re-bled the brakes today. This time the brake bled very easily unlike in the spring. As nice as the new cylinder is, it's tempting to just order another for the left, but I'll refrain.


One exciting thing that showed up over the summer was my EDM900. I'm trying to do all the panel wiring and such over the next month so I want to get everything mounted in the panel soon. Over the summer I did a lot of thinking and decided to move the EDM to the top of the radio stack, and move the Aera660 over to directly in front of the pilot, in portrait mode. Tomorrow I'm hoping to cut the final-ish left side panel so I can get wire lengths and such.

Good choice, I love my EDM 900, but it’s to the right of radio stack in mine, and just a skoshi bit too far for my aging eyes. Your location looks perfect.

Nice work!

MTV

Another day.

Cut out "final" panels. There are some things I would've liked to spend more time finessing, but time to get moving. One of them is the Aera660. Would be cool for it to be flush but I need access to the power button to mark waypoints, and I'm not a huge fan of the airgizmos mount. Can always cut another flush or airgizmos mount version panel later and swap it in. The beauty of modular. The 3 holes on right side are heat/air controls. Switches under GPS are aux fuel transfer. I put those switches and their corresponding lights on a separate backer plate held to panel by 2 screws. Trying to do little things to make the panel very simple yet serviceable.



Test fit in airplane. Upper/lower panel frames are just cleco'd to fuselage.



Had to remove lower panel to add a hole for mag switch, them bolted it and the upper panel frame to the fuselage for (maybe) the last time.



For some reason adding colored engine controls feels like a big step even though there's no firewall or engine.

I like it! Simple, but complete, and logical locations for everything. I hope you did away with the vernier throttle that Maule seems enamored with. Man, I hate those things!

MTV

Yeah, I pulled a vernier throttle out of my 180 and replaced it with a very expensive McFarlane vernier assist - best of both worlds but not cheap at all.

Nice work, Asa

mtv wrote:I like it! Simple, but complete, and logical locations for everything. I hope you did away with the vernier throttle that Maule seems enamored with. Man, I hate those things!

MTV

soyAnarchisto wrote:Yeah, I pulled a vernier throttle out of my 180 and replaced it with a very expensive McFarlane vernier assist - best of both worlds but not cheap at all.

Nice work, Asa

mtv wrote:I like it! Simple, but complete, and logical locations for everything. I hope you did away with the vernier throttle that Maule seems enamored with. Man, I hate those things!

MTV

I put a vernier assist in my 170 when I put the 0-360 in. I love that thing.

Cool. It takes all kinds in this world. Maybe I can sell it and recoup some of my cost.

daedaluscan wrote:

soyAnarchisto wrote:Yeah, I pulled a vernier throttle out of my 180 and replaced it with a very expensive McFarlane vernier assist - best of both worlds but not cheap at all.

Nice work, Asa

mtv wrote:I like it! Simple, but complete, and logical locations for everything. I hope you did away with the vernier throttle that Maule seems enamored with. Man, I hate those things!

MTV

I put a vernier assist in my 170 when I put the 0-360 in. I love that thing.