Firewall Passthroughs

With the engine delivery nearing, I need to stop messing around and get my firewall ready! My punch list has a bunch of open things on it to include:

• Lavashield heat barrier
• Oil Cooler bracket
• Control Cable pass-throughs
• Power Cable pass-through
• Universal Pass-through
• Engine mount

I was able to knock off two of those things today, I started with the power cable passthrough. I purchased a firewall pass-through from summit racing a couple months ago and it was finally time to install it.



I used the stock location, but if I were to do this again I would use the factory hole, but push the location up and to the pilots right a bit. There is a doubler in this location, and while I was able to avoid running into it, I will have to fab a washer for the interior so the nut it sits flush. I drilled this to about 3/4 of an inch, then pulled out a carbide burr to take care of the rest. Yes, those are straight sides as that is the anti-rotation design from the pass-through.

I was also able to take care of my cable control pass throughs. Like the power connector, I purchased some eyeball passthroughs a couple of months ago. In all honesty, I have been putting off installing them because I was not sure how I wanted to lay them out. I finally decided to just put them in because it would be a complete pain to do this later.



There are three holes by default. I split the difference on the two left holes and these holes disappeared after I drilled the 1 1/8 hole for the eyeball.



That left the right hole off center but complete within the second eyeball cutout.





I placed the holes such that the backing plates were sided by side and touching. This was the decision point on where to put the third eyeball. I really wanted to put it to the right of the other two so that they were all on the same plane. If I were to do it again, I would probably do it that way. It looks like the control cables will all three line up nicely if you were to put them in the standard same plane configuration like the default setup. However, I was worried there there was some interference from something I needed to install in the future because every photo I have seen of an RV-10 firewall everyone seems to avoid the right mid part of this box...?



Yes, these plates are on backwards right now. These are not installed, I was just trying to find where to put the third passthrough. I ultimately decided on putting it lower than the previous two. It seemed to fit nicely in there. I guess I will find out when I go to install my control cables if this was a good idea or not ;) Hopefully I will remember to come back and update this post when I get that far.







I wanted to keep this paper in my files, but I was too lazy to walk it inside, and too impatient to have it just laying around. So I will archive it here for later.

Fathers day

I forgot to post this the other month. This was from fathers day. My dad helping me do the finishing kit inventory!

Trim motor connectors

I originally was going to take the stein air approach to the trim motor connectors and just use some heatshrink and dsub connectors to build a removable connection to the trim motors. That was until I started working on the horizontal stablizer service bulletin. If I ever had to service one of the connections in the tail, I quick realized how big of a pain in the butt it was going to be. I decided on the following series connectors for tail and wing connections. (EDAC Connectors)

Thankfully I have some fairly nice Molex crimpers ;)

I need to start documenting these things, but for my own future reference: Orange, White, Green, White, Blue.

The wires were bare, so I protected the wires with some standard expandable sleeving.

 The assembled connector.

Organizational skills

I spent a good 2 hours the other day going through every washer that I had looking for 2 washers for the nosewheel axle. I broke down and was about to order them off of vans when in a last ditch effort to establish sanity I pulled out my inventory sheet. Low and behold, the washers that I could not find were B/O ordered on my last kit purchase!!!

Andair Fuel Valve

A while ago I ordered an Andair valve direct from Andair. I finally got an adapter plate fabricated and had a chance to install the valve.



Everything at this point is great in terms of fit of the valve. The one thing I have to do is send my valve to filter line back to TS Flightlines to get a shortened version. The standard line length from Tom is about 2 inches too long in my scenario, and rather than have the lines and fittings under stress, I am going to get a shorter line.

Com1 Antenna Doubler

I am going to put COM1 under the left rear passenger seat and COM2 on (or behind) the cabin top. I built a doubler for COM1 but need to wait until my wife gets home so I can shoot the rivets. I did have an annoying slow down on this one. I ran out of 6d nails for use with the dimpler dies (the ones you use with a blind rivet puller). So I had to run to ace hardware for some 6d nails for the plane. (I just like saying I had to run to the store to get some nails for the plane).

Static System

Everyone seems to put their static system up the left side of the plane. That probably makes sense, because my pitot and AOA tubes will be coming out of the left wing and it would be nice to keep all three tubes in the same run. As I was routing everything though I did not really like how the run was looking. The left side of the plane has the baggage door, so you are forced to drop down to under the rear baggage floor and seat following the battery cable. I went back and forth in an internal debate on this for more time than I care to share. I think ultimately I am going to make the static run up the right side of the plane to not have to drop under the floor. I ordered some clickbonds and will make the decision when they show up.