Oil Cooler, Oil Lines, and Some Riveting
TLDR
- Fitted the oil cooler
- Started to place oil lines
- Riveted the rear fuselage parachute box
Details
I started to work on the oil system today.
First things first, I wanted to install the oil cooler on the cowling to get the exact location set, then I can start to fit the oil lines.
Oil Cooler
Before anything starts, I wrapped the oil cooler with some cardboard for protection.
The oil cooler installs in the same way as the coolant radiator. It’s latched onto the cowling with 2 locks. One half of the latch goes onto the oil cooler, which took 20 maybe 30 minutes top.
The other half goes onto the cowling composite. This is the tricky part, as it’s really difficult to pinpoint the lock’s location and mark drilling holes. Firstly there were not a lot of space to get the pen in, and secondly the latch lock can’t be too close or too far from the oil filter or it won’t latch properly.
So anyways I spent about 2 hours trying to find the right location to drill the holes for the 2 sets of latches. Fortunately, I the the locks installed and it locks correctly.
I haven’t installed the seal yet. Once the seal is installed the latch should lock slightly more firmly which is a good thing.
Oil Lines
I temporarily placed the oil tank on the airplane, and loosely connected the oil lines to visualize how the lines will run.
This part is dreading because 1. I don’t want to let go of the oil from the engine. 2. the fittings all have extremely tight access. 3. I’d probably have to redo a lot of wire organization to avoid chafing.
Riveting
I decided to punt of actually connecting the oil lines for a day. I wanted to do something more fun.
As it turns out riveting is my happy place. I forgot to take video on this part, but I reveted the surrounding area of the parachute box.
I originally thought the circle or rivet holes around the parachute box is designed to hold the blowout skin. But after watching some more photos and instruction videso I think the surrounding holes can be riveted right away. For the blowout skin I’d need to drill new holes.
So, I just zipped a bunch of rivets to offcially close the rear fuselage. That was fun.
