I decided to route the awesome wiring harness that MidWest Panel builders made. Needless to say it took quite a bit of effort to push the harness through the channels and holes.. like pushing fragile rope, making sure not to pull too hard or nick any wires.
Sure enough, the harness fit the plane perfectly with all the attachment points where they were supposed to be. I did find that I can remove some wires from the crowded center channel, the tail nav light and trim servo wires are pre-wires in the harness with an attachment point underneath the rear seat. Routing the rear seat passenger headphone jacks proved to take a bit more effort. I had to drill a decent sized hole (1 inch maybe) in the baggage compartment to route the wires correctly. I also unraveled the firewall insulation. It’s not pre-cut, so I’ll have to make some measurements and plan it carefully.. I probably will just wait until I get the firewall forward kit to make sure everything is right. And finally, I mounted the GMU 11 Magnetometer and ran the harness endpoint to it. Securing the wire is going to be a bit of a struggle with the limited access back there. While I wait for additional shipments, I decided to try and place the center console skins to check fit.
However, that means installing a good amount of rivnuts in the center console ribs and floor. Almost all of the rivnut holes had to be upsized to M4. I think at some point the factory switched from M3 to M4. Some places were a tight fit, so I used the angle drill bit to help reach some spots. The step drill doesn’t do the best job with creating a clean cut, so every hole also needed to be deburred pretty heavily. I began fitting the skins and built up the center console box that fits above the flap actuator. Things we’re going smoothly until I placed the bottle skin that fits along the main spar. It seems the space between the rib that holds the flap actuator and the main spar was too small for the skin. I emailed TAF about this and they said to check the alignment of the fuselage forward or the spar. This was a QuickBuild and the side skins were already on, so the alignment should be correct. I’ll be looking at what options I have to get it to fit. I might just have to move the rib a bit forward to get things to line up. |
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