Thanks for the comments and questions, especially the error checking and the gentle nudge.

The correct gauge for the lights is 20 ga. I’m correcting that on the drawing but it probably won’t get posted for a while. Note that although I baselined the Whelen Orion wingtip lights, I am not committed to them and that will probably change. I haven’t bought them yet.

There are two short copper bars. I’ll at least put the terminal caps on the wires. There’s not a lot of exposed copper bar remaining but I’d insulate it if I come up with a good method. The one between the ANLs will be easy to insulate with a short piece of shrink tube. Thinking of epoxy primer or a cover for the one between the contactors but there’s probably a better way and I'm open to suggestions. Here’s a photo that shows the avionics shelf as it is now, and as you can see, there’s clearly much remaining. Most of that will await the wires feeding in from the wings.



The stall warner is in lieu of an AOA system. It’s a single-point AOA, adjusted to warn of a stall. This is the same as my C180, in which I have lots of time and am used to. My general philosophy is to maintain some similarity to the C180 in spite of the difference in performance. Also, the pitot tube I built, which I don’t think I’ve documented here, does not contain an AOA port - this was an early decision for me.

Here’s the pitot tube. The body of it is a section of aluminum jury strut as used on some light homebuilts such as a Pietenpol or Legal Eagle. As you can see, there’s no pitot heat. I fly day VFR and have never needed the pitot heat system on the C180, so decided that this would be a good place to save a few ounces.



Thanks again.

Dave

The ADAHRS is installed and hooked up to its cable. I probably couldn’t have found a more awkward location for it. Still, it is accessible, if marginally - I did this work in situ and placed installation notes in the Maintenance Manual that I’m keeping. It’s located immediately forward of the F-309 bulkhead, with the pitot-static lines entering from the front and the cables from the rear. The ADAHRS location is shown in red. The OAT sensor is on the F-309 bulkhead.



The transponder is installed and hooked up to its cable, except for the antenna cable, so far unmade. It’s on the right side of the fuselage just aft of the baggage bulkhead, and is relatively convenient.

Both forward cockpit bay sides, where the rudder pedals are, are now painted with the white Ekopoxy primer. It’s rugged and a lot lighter than bare aluminum. It makes work down there easier to see.

Speaking of the rudder pedals, both are now installed.

The aft most two work platforms have been removed. They can go in if necessary but there’s probably no reason to do that. A certain amount of shavings and other debris had collected in the belly, now vacuumed out. Have to admit that the tailcone is not my most favorite place to work.

With the seat and baggage area work platforms still in, I installed the autopilot’s pitch servo and the bellcrank. Once the bellcrank was in, I hooked up the smaller of the elevator pushrods. The forward end is already connected to the control stick mixer.

I glued on two glue-on studs, roughly akin to Clip-Bond’s, that a friend made for me. These will be used later. They are attached to the right spar bulkhead on the forward face.

Remember that the fuel valve and fuel pump are installed? The fuel line between them is now installed, too. I fabricated it, and it only took me five tries to get it right.

I put the avionics shelf in for now and connected the pitch servo cable to its Dsub connector and plugged it in. Next, I did the same for the ADAHRS cable. I trimmed the transponder cable and put the Dsub pins on it and then remembered - the transponder doesn’t get connected to the network hub as I was about to attempt to do, it gets connected to the EFIS D37 connector, which I don't have yet. I’ll need to splice some of the original wire back on. Oopsie! RTFM, dummy. Which made me realize that just as the Trig TY91 com radio has its schematic, I really ought to make one for the transponder. That’s costing me a few hours.

And now that the topic of hours is on the table, let’s talk about that. I’d been working close to 600 hours a year, roughly. You can figure out how many hours a week that is - it ain’t much. I kicked that up a couple notches, set a daily and weekly goal for hours worked, and am now making a bit of progress. Instead of looking at this as a fun hobby project, with little concern about flying it (I really don’t need an RV-3B or even particularly want one, when we come down to it), I decided to complete the plane and get it in the air. A different goal, you see. Why the difference? Well, I’m getting older and my needs and priorities are shifting since I started this thing nine years ago.

Dave

Here’s a photo of that fuel line I mentioned.



The longer hours mean that the afternoon nap I’d been enjoying isn’t possible. And it also means that I can’t do some of the occasional activities I’d been doing. The result of the changes is that the RV-3B is less enjoyable as a project, and more like a job. And I’ve been making a bit of progress.

Dave

One of the things that had been nagging at me for a while is that I never did install the braces between the seat bulkhead and the longerons aft of them. This is an RV-4 mod because as designed, the seat back presses against the seat bulkhead, flexing it. I wasn’t too worried because on my plane the seat back only presses against it at the top, with less leverage. Still, I wanted to add the braces.

It got a bit complicated because the aft canopy latch’s bearing block is in that location and the roll bar is right there too.

Ultimately I made a small two-piece assembly for the right side and a different one for the left. The left one is a piece of aluminum angle attached to the roll bar’s forward bolt and ending at an aluminum sheet bracket on the bulkhead, at a place that’s clear of the interfering parts. The pieces are riveted together and to the bulkhead.

The right one is simpler and has a cleaner load path, made of two aluminum sheet fittings. Like the left side, it’s riveted together and to the bulkhead, and picks up the forward roll bar bolt.

Sorry, no photos of them.

I figured out how to make the phone jack panel and the oxygen regulator mount. The pieces fit okay and are now installed. The photo shows them and the 12 V outlet, plus the bottom oxygen meter mount. Without the side panel cover in place, they appear a bit lost…. But they are home.



I installed the flap weldment and then made the discovery - with that in place, the seat pan’s aft-most screws, which are also the baggage floor’s most forward screws, are not accessible at all. Dang…. The options were to leave it this way and remove flap weldment as part of the floor removal process, or make a doubler that permanently attaches to the seat bulkhead (which is where this all is), with a slightly shorter seat pan and baggage floor. Such a doubler would need to have nutplates that pick up the seat pan and baggage floor, which then would attach to that.

I chose the doubler to make future maintenance simpler. The photo, though, only shows the access difficulty.



One little issue I’d had was where to hang Dynon’s GPS antenna. I know that a number of people put it on the firewall, but the RV-3B FWF area is small, so I didn’t want to do that. It would have been possible to mount it directly on the fiberglass canopy frame and that was tempting. But the antenna wires would have needed to flex when the canopy opened and closed, and I was reluctant to do it that way. If I’d mounted it on the coaming in front of the canopy, externally, I’d have needed to disconnect the wires every time I removed that panel, another idea that was easy to reject. Besides, I’m reluctant to hang antennas externally if I don’t need to, and the com and transponder antennas already will be attached to the belly, and that’s enough.

I made a bracket to go on the top skin aft of the roll bar at a location that clears the canopy. The wires will be routed inside the fuselage.



Now for that which I know you have been eagerly waiting, just how I was going to secure the seat back hinge pins. My first approach, shown here with one of the pins in place, worked fine. There are two holes adjacent to the slot where the two wire ends go, for safety wire.



But it kept nagging me that although it worked fine, it was regrettably somewhat inelegant. My current version is definitely simpler, merely safety wiring the two pins together.



This does not keep the pins from working left or right, though. It merely constrains them to creep together. We’ll see if I need to change that.

Did I mention that I’d finalized the panel layout? The actual panel will have three warning lights above the EFIS, for the canopy latch, the starter stuck on, and the carburetor ice detector.



Dave

Seat Back Pin
 

Dave

On my RV 3 seat back the two wires have a 90 Deg bend, there is a 1 lug hinge cut off with a hole. This lug is held down with a screw into an anchor nut underneath. This works extremely well, doesn't catch on anything in the baggage compartment and is firmly held
I'm away on business for the next couple of weeks so will not be able to send a photo of my seat back. If you can wait that long let me know and I will send a picture to you.

I see you are using a Trig radio, I fitted the same in my RV 3 and it is the best radio for clarity I have had in any aircraft I've flown you will not be disappointed.

Rob
G-BVDC

I totally agree with this review of the Trig TY-91. Best comm I have come across yet. Have installed them in Aviat Husky, RV-3B, Birddog and PA-12. In the Birddog I installed a second control head for the back seater. The TY-91 has standby frequency monitoring and a GPS can send frequencies to standby via RS-232 to the control head (I do this with an aera 660 and aera 760). Works great and is dead nuts simple to use. Any pilot can just turn on the avionics master and start using the comm without any prior experience. They just work and work well without any fiddling.

Thank you, both of you, for these postings. As it turned out, the TY91 was delivered today.

I figured out how to grab the hinge pins - no safety wire needed. I'm going to stick a 1/2" x 1/16" magnet to the seat pan under the ends of the pins. I used the Teslameter in my phone to evaluate the stray magnetic field, and found that the magnetism is very localized. By 9" away from the magnet, everything has completely returned to ambient. This will have no effect on the ADAHRS heading signal, I think. Caveat, I don't know how sensitive the phone's magnetometer is compared to the Earth's magnetism. The app reports a background magnetic strength of around 40 uT in the shop, and I remember that I've seen less while out for a walk.

I cut out the panel all by myself. I used a die grinder and a cutting disc, a nibbler, a hole saw and some other hand tools. Old school and it wasn’t all that hard.



The Trig TY91 com radio came in and I soon found that I have a physical interference on the avionics panel. After a moment of panic, I figured out how to relocate it, but needed a few more Click Bond nutplates. Those things are easy to use and so handy.

The TY91 is in the panel so that I could begin wiring it up.

The panel is white epoxy primer merely to make it possible to use pencil to mark the cuts. My pencils have a finer line than the extra-sharp Sharpies.

A friend came over and we riveted the com antenna doubler. I’m gradually running not of things that need riveting. That hinged thing? Keep reading.



The GPS mount is now installed, too. There’s a plastic bushing through the hole in the fuselage top and the interior areas of the mount and that portion if the skin are primed, since access later will be if not impossible, unlikely.



I had a piece of a very large honkin’ aerospace MS20001 piano hinge that someone gave me back when I had my trimaran sailboat. The thing is nearly 1/8” thick and well over 3” wide and 2024. Hadn’t found a use for it until now. And now a piece of it is the crotch strap anchor. The hinge feature is good because I have no idea what will be the natural angle for the crotch strap.

It's so wide because I needed to clear the riveted bulkhead/rib joint that this passes and then get enough rivets in to carry a load.

Here it is folded forward.



And folded aft.



Thanks to Russell for photos of his rather different installation. Eventually, after a few years rumination, this evolved.

Dave

I cut out the panel all by myself. I used a die grinder and a cutting disc, a nibbler, a hole saw and some other hand tools. Old school and it wasn’t all that hard.



The Trig TY91 com radio came in and I soon found that I have a physical interference on the avionics panel. After a moment of panic, I figured out how to relocate it, but needed a few more Click Bond nutplates. Those things are easy to use and so handy.

The TY91 is in the panel so that I could begin wiring it up.

The panel is white epoxy primer merely to make it possible to use pencil to mark the cuts. My pencils have a finer line than the extra-sharp Sharpies.

A friend came over and we riveted the com antenna doubler. I’m gradually running not of things that need riveting. That hinged thing? Keep reading.



The GPS mount is now installed, too. There’s a plastic bushing through the hole in the fuselage top and the interior areas of the mount and that portion if the skin are primed, since access later will be if not impossible, unlikely.



I had a piece of a very large honkin’ aerospace MS20001 piano hinge that someone gave me back when I had my trimaran sailboat. The thing is nearly 1/8” thick and well over 3” wide and 2024. Hadn’t found a use for it until now. And now a piece of it is the crotch strap anchor. The hinge feature is good because I have no idea what will be the natural angle for the crotch strap.

It's so wide because I needed to clear the riveted bulkhead/rib joint that this passes and then get enough rivets in to carry a load. It was fun drilling the holes for the cotter pins at the ends.

Here it is folded forward.



And folded aft.



Thanks to Russell for photos of his rather different installation. Eventually, after a few years rumination, this evolved.

Dave

Since I haven’t decided between a vinyl wrap or paint, I selected some colors of the wrap that I liked and placed small samples on the top of my pickup’s shell to see how they handle the bright Colorado sun. Wish I’d thought of doing this back when I got them at the beginning of the year.



Hanging the horizontal stabilizer took last weekend. Most of the time was spent aligning it. Now it’s clecoed on and I’ll final-drill it one of these days. It’s secure enough for now. Before you get too excited, remember that it’ll come off again and go into storage; it’s in a small shop space and would get in the way.



Thinking ahead to the vertical stabilizer, the bottom-most hole needed to be drilled. The mating hole is already in the aft-most bulkhead and tail spring mount. The bolt in this hole will constrain the vertical stabilizer vertically and laterally. It’s in a curved section of the stabilizer. The axial position had been marked but not the lateral. How to line it up?

I measured in from both sides and that gave me one location. To confirm it, I placed a small angle on the mark and sighted down through the two hinge fitting holes. It was pretty easy to spot the angle and tweak it’s position.



I really like this 2"machinist's square.
Here's a link.

Decided to get the elevators fit first, though.

Dave