First time seeing the light of day in about a year. Got it all moved over to the hangar. Was also great seeing the plane in natural outdoor light for the first time - it looks really good and I'm super happy with the tinted windows and the light grey tint on the windshield.

The holy trinity - old airplanes, old toyotas, old horses.

You know you’re getting close then you make the big move to the hanger. Looking good

I was wondering if you were going to have problems getting it out of the garage. From all your pictures thru the thread it sure did look close to the top of the door. Getting close!

Kurt

G44 wrote:I was wondering if you were going to have problems getting it out of the garage. From all your pictures thru the thread it sure did look close to the top of the door. Getting close!

Kurt

I had been worried myself haha. Until the day I moved it, it was on car dollies which made it about 4" too high to fit out the door, and that was evident in all the pictures. Sitting on it's own wheels, it was exactly the height of the door so I deflated the tires to roll it out. Worked great, and could've removed wheels and put the axles on the dollies for another 4" or so if needed.

Have been doing prep for wing mounting which I am planning on doing Saturday. My friends work normal jobs like assholes so have to wait for the weekend.

Pulled new 20/3 shielded wire through wings for Pulsar NSP nav/strobes. Connectorized (is that a word?) all the wires at wingtip/wing interface as well as wingroot/fuselage interface with molex connectors. No more cutting wires to pull tips or wings. Still need to cut holes i wing root oratex for fuel lines and pitot.

Before:


After:



Drove a forklift down the highway to the airport to make the wing mounting easier. Obviously the fine work will be done by hand but the forklift is nice for being able to pause the work if something comes up. I have fork extensions/pads made of wood and carpet to go on the forks.





Also had a visit from a BCP member, Keith (kg), who even brought a sacrifice to the maule gods... a tailwheel that I was looking for.

Gettin close. I know the feeling….

Yep, it's a thing of beauty!

A couple of friends and I decided to replace our usual hundred dollar lunch with a trip to visit Asa. (he's only 80 miles from me as the Cessna flys)

He showed us the project and then we enjoyed a nice lunch.

I admire his skill and the patience required to accomplish a project like this. Much of it is certainly better than the factory put out. The wiring alone would have caused me to waive the white flag of surrender but Asa's wiring, in the terms of an old employer of mine, "could have been videotaped and used for training".

It will be nice to see the Maule flying!

K

Sure looks like it is getting close. Nice job Asa!!

Thanks guys!

Major visual progress today. Thankful for my local dirtbag aviation community, including my Dad.

Wings are motivating. Rigging, not so much…

Looking good

skyward II wrote:Wings are motivating. Rigging, not so much…

Looking good

The way my brain works (not sure how exactly it works), something methodical like rigging isn't too bad, and I got lucky today.

Studied the Maule maintenance manual and Jeremy's more detailed procedure yesterday. Started the morning getting the plane leveled. Was surprised how high the tail was and how low the prop flange was, no wonder the long props require extended gear. Used tire pressure to level laterally based on the forward spar bolts.

Checked dihedral and washout as-is. Left wing looked damn close, the other had low dihedral and high washout. Removed rear struts, adjusted right wing's front strut 2.5 turns to increase dihedral. This brought both wings right on, the string was 2.75" above the spar cap per maintenance manual.

Increasing dihedral on that wing made the washout too low, so elongated the rear strut to 1.5 turns to get the 0.5 degrees difference from root to tip. Now the struts on each side are showing approximately the same amount of threads which feels like a good sign, although it means nothing on a maule. We'll see how it flies like this and then go from there.







Got the wingtips on and strut cuffs on. Pulsar NSP lights hooked up and tested, they look great. Also tested aux fuel pumps and pitot heat. Seems like all my wing connections are good.

Get it. I love the energy..

Cowl sanding complete, have been doing it here and there late at night when the hangar gets cold. What you see here is a thin guide coat of primer sprayed in less than optimal conditions. Can't see the stripes and scratches so I think I've sanded enough. When I get warmer weather and time I'll get setup for the "real" prime/paint. Would've preferred to not paint the camlocks but I couldn't figure out a great way to mask them and they are not removable so I just sprayed over them.



Wing root fuel lines connected. Took much longer than expected to do all 4 due to the angle of the rear ones.



Flap torque tubes installed and hooked up. Took longer than expected. Felt like someone was playing a bad joke on me, I could NOT figure out how the ends fit through this rib hole, was starting to think I should have had them in the wing before putting the wing on. Just wasn't working. Then it worked and it was done. Which is how it seems to happen.



Ailerons are on an hooked up. Not yet tensioned/rigged but they're roughly adjusted.

So Asa, I see you are spending time today with your sweetheart on this Valentine’s Day.

G44 wrote:So Asa, I see you are spending time today with your sweetheart on this Valentine’s Day.

Where else would I be???

Got the flaps hung. Tensioned/rigged/safetied flap and aileron cables.





Prop and spinner installed. Prop is freshly overhauled right before starting this project. Went ahead and put on a new alternator belt while the prop was off. Cleaned and gapped the plugs, those also are recently new. Turned the engine through by hand, was first time it's moved in a year - it’s been pickled with desiccant plugs and preservative oil (in sump and fogged cylinders) since. Hoping to run it in the next day or so, but want to get the wing root fairings installed first.

Flying by Sunday I would assume. Way to attack the task.

skyward II wrote:Flying by Sunday I would assume. Way to attack the task.

Thanks! No flying this week though. My IA is coming the 28th to start the annual so earliest is next week.

Got my insurance lined up through BWI. This one took some back and forth for justifying the hull value (modification receipts) and also having a training requirement since I've never actually flown an M6. Heading out to do an M6 checkout on Saturday if the weather holds.

Got the wing root fairings fitted and installed. New fuselage makes this take some time. I'm going to add some soft weather stripping underneath to help keep out water since the fairings sit atop of the skylight fasteners.



After tensioning the flap cables to the requisite 60lbs, I found that when in the 0deg and 20deg position, I could wiggle the flap handle and it would come out of the detent and go to 40deg flaps. Not good. Went digging in my parts room (basement) and found the new old stock pawl I thought I lost. Did the minimum amount of disassembly to swap it out but still took an hour or so.by the time I got the cables all tensioned back up and everything. Fixed the problem. The old one didn't look too bad (pictured below), but the new one has no wiggle in the ratchet slots at all. Very thankful I was able to find it, ordering a new one may have delayed me a week or so.

Used the forklift to tow the M6 to the gas pumps. A beautiful day made the plane look pretty good. Wanted to get enough fuel to test for leaks and do some engine runs, but not very much because I'll have to drain it back out for weighing.







Bled the air out of fuel line at the boost pump, did some final walk around checks and fired her up! Ran great after a year of being pickled. Had my dad on fire watch, which then transformed to video duty.




Ran it for a couple minutes, checked for leaks and such, then fired it back up and took for a taxi around the block and tested radios and everything. So far, so good.

Weigh day.

Drained fuel in level flight attitude, just pushed it out enough to feel I wasn't building up fumes to explode and it was breezy so I wasn't too concerned. Took longer than expected to drain through gascolator, thankful there was only 2.5-3 gallons in there. I added 6gal at the pump the other day. Unusable is supposed to be 3gal and it's ran on the ground at idle-ish power for 20 mins or so total. Seems about right.



Backed it back up into hangar and started adding scales under each wheel. Forklift made the whole leveling thing really easy and a pallet on the forks made an excellent work surface that was large enough to not worry about the plan getting knocked off.





And the outcome is.... 1474 lbs. The tail was 95lbs and noticeably lighter than my M7 when picking it up to put on the scales. The weight is satisfactory to me and the optimist in me says the very far forward empty CG (9.8") will be great for when I'm loaded up. This is without a back seat (10lbs?), on 850's, only primer on the cowl, very light VFR panel with no gyros or vacuum system, minimal interior, no headliner, ultralight carpet, etc. It will likely gain a few pounds after annual and before I take it to Alaska at which point I can weigh it again if I want. Painting cowl, little interior additions I may find I want, vinyl stripes, etc.

While it was leveled and before I put it on the scales, I measured prop clearance for the fun of it. 15" with the 81" Hartzell.



Last night I got all my avionics configurations done. Was hoping to get my fuel level sensors on EDM900 calibrated today but it was windy and I didn't want to fight the plane rocking around sloshing fuel while doing the calibration.

235 horsepower & only 1464# empty?
That thing oughta kick ass!
Looks great too-- I've really enjoyed your posts as you built it.