I was doing some work on the fuselage today and was searching for an answer to a question I had. Of course I did find it on VAF and that got me to thinking I haven't done any sort of an update in a while. Nothing earth shattering to report. Just clicking off things in the build while working to feed my hobby.
This is how I mounted my potentiometer for flap position. The link is large scale RC car parts that everybody recommended. I made the bracket and everything can be removed with a couple screws that go in to plate nuts.
I did SB 16-12-16. When I got my kit I started at the beginning of the build manual and checked on each step. I did notice these 12 bolts were not installed but I made a highlighted note to wait and see if there was anything else that was supposed to be attached with these bolts. I also went forward in the manual at the wing install and left another highlighted note to confirm the 12 bolts were installed. Since I have a canoe this was a pretty simple chore. Fabbed up a simple tool to get the job done.
Next was brake lines. I am running Grove airfoil gear so this is how I plumbed it. I have seen a couple other ways too. When the line is tight it does not touch anything and it does not move.
Here is the cockpit portion of the brakes. I put the brake fluid reservoir in the baggage compartment. The single line comes down to a splitter where it meets the flex lines take it to the feed side of the masters. The twin hard lines are the pressure lines coming out of the parking brake valve and traveling down the gear towers to connect to the gear.
Next up was fuel vent. I just couldn't bring myself to do it the stock way. Went with the JDAir machined vents. Nice pieces of equipment. The problem on the 8 is the floor is not the bottom of the airplane and I didn't want to run Rocket coils in the wing roots. Because of the shape of the grove gear leg in the pocket it wouldn't work to use the stock hole so I asked Van's if they had any issues with me drilling a second hole in the floor and moving the fuel vent inboard about 1.5 inches. They saw no issues so I pressed on.
Here is the vent mounted on the custom made gear pocket close out plate.
The main issue was, if I used the stock fuel vent hole location the teardrop vent would cover up the middle screw of the close out plate. The size/shape of the Grove gear leg limits where you can mount the teardrop vent as well.
The view from below.
Here is the side view in the gear pocket with the gear removed. I put a -4 rivet in the plate to prevent the vent from rotating. I notice in the picture it looks like my little doubler is raised way up. It is not in real life. Obviously for the final installation there will be rubber grommets etc but you get the idea. I don't have picture from inside the gear tower but essentially I have the AN fitting that comes through the side of the fuselage from the tank. Connected to that is a short (approx 10") piece of flexible braided stainless line I had Tom at TS Flightlines make for me. The flexible line travels up and connects to a hard line that from there is essentially a stock system but with a more attractive termination out the bottom of the aircraft. The short flexible section allows me to unscrew the gear pocket close out plate and pull the whole assembly down a little. I can then get wrenches on the vent fitting and disconnect it from the vent line. From there I can just pull the entire vent line out of the gear tower except it is a bit easier than stock because I have that short section of flexible line.
I have just about finished everything I need to do construction wise in the tail cone. A friend came by and helped me rivet in the autopilot pitch servo mount. Thank goodness I put a couple layers of cardboard down to protect the skin because between the two of us I bet we dropped the bars about 100 times each.
While I am waiting for my magnetometer mount I put the turtleneck skin on again and did some final fitting. The next time I pull it off it will be time to dimple etc to be ready for riveting. I also put the forward skin on. This gets modified for the fastback conversion so I need to start figuring out how that all works.