First up today, I wanted to find a solution for the rudder cable routing holes through the center section. The drill and bit were too long to have proper perpendicular access. Easiest solution I could come up with, was to cut the drill bit a little bit shorter, so thats exactly what I did.  

As you can see, drilling the aft could only be accomplished from the the front. Here is the fully drilled hole. I made sure to do a good job deburring everything, which was a little more challenging that other areas.

Next I figured I would attached the rudder cable protective tubes to the bushings at the rear passenger foot wells. My technique was to us a #40 drill. I protected the cable from the drill with a large black zip tie shoved in the tube. The black was easy to see through, and by being careful I was able to accomplish the task quickly and easily.   

Here’s the end product. It isn’t sexy, but its cheap and effective.   

I want to install the rudder fairings in the near future. I plan to pro-seal them in place. To do so, I wanted to be able to play with the position of the aft plastic protective tubes, so I needed to put the clamps in place.
  

Moving around the cockpit is a pain, and as I didn’t have any floor in the main part of the cockpit I needed to quickly cut some scrap wood to make a platform.

Now that the rudder cables are routed all the way to the front, I turned my attention to the rudder pedals. First, I drilled the holes on the brake pedals for attachment to the brake master cylinders. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture. After that, I realized there was nothing left to do, other than bolt it all together and check for free movement. Before I do that, I plan to paint the appropriate parts, and the interior of the airplane. But, I hadn’t finished the rear seat rudder pedals yet. Next!

First you need to attach these bad boys. This required removing the bolts. Only one hole is match drilled. (The one on the left in the photo) So the right bolt hole needs to be match drilled. This is a challenge with the gear tower geometry but with the angle drill, I was able to make it work.

Next up you need to fit the brackets for the push rods. These are attached to the center section and the ribs of the front seat. 

There’s not a lot of room here. The bottom of the bracket is not pre-drilled. Measure a line straight back, and then measure the centerline (5/16) on the bracket. This will allow you to find the appropriate location of the bracket’s outboard hole. Drill this first. 

The inner nut plate’s location isn’t critical according to the plans. And thats good, because its a pain in the ass. First off, for some reason there is one set of holes already pre-drilled. They’re not well aligned, and they don’t meet the bracket exactly where you’d like them to. So the option is drill the bracket perfect and have oblong holes on the bottom, or drill as best you can to the pre-drilled points and accept a little wiggle room on the bracket. As Van’s said the inner nut plate isn’t critical, I went with the latter. Its not like this is a high stress area needed for structural integrity of the aircraft.

Here is the eventual result on the left. It takes awhile given the awkward position I had to contort into. Plus, you need to drill all three holes, countersink, and match drill the bracket.   

Here’s the bracket on the left. I’m very happy with the placement of both nut plates. Unfortunately, the right bracket was less cooperative, and the inner screw has very little edge distance. But again, not critical in my estimation.

I primed and painted the insides of the rudder cable fairings.   

Here’s what they’ll look like when installed. I’m very happy with this essentially free customization.   

Somewhat frustratingly, I think I have finally arrived at the perfect point for painting the majority of the interior. But with winter underway, its unlikely the weather will cooperate in the near future. I’m making a mental note that the next warm dry spell equals painting. The rudder pedals, and controls are all ready for installation. All floors and seat panels are ready for installation. I’d like to paint the sides and other areas before installing many of these items for easier access.

Its cold out! I had a little spare time this evening to begin work on a few miscellaneous projects. First up, I need to route some conduit to the tail of the plane for the elevator trim and the rudder strobe. I’m going to use the same flexible tube conduit from Van’s I used in the wings. A few builders have created new holes in the bulkhead, but I’m not a big fan of drilling extra holes in this location. I’m going to use zip ties. To help protect from chaffing I made some small doublers from the split tube conduit I have for each zip tie / bulkhead location.  

Here is the conduit with the extra conduit doubler on top.   

Here is the final version of the left rudder cable fairing I made in the previous session.

While I didn’t take a photo, I also fabricated the second fairing for the right side tonight and then primed.

I also made the bonehead mistake of placing the static ports one bulkhead further forward than they are supposed to be. I drilled them out quickly.

I’m going to use an oops rivet to fix. I slightly countersunk the surface, and here is the result. I still need to drive the rivet, but it is impossible to do solo.  

Next I ran the static line in its proper location. I didn’t trim the tubing, and will wait until my new static ports arrive. You can also see the conduit installed in this photo. I’m not entirely sure how far forward I will bring the conduit at this point. My thought is that I will bring it forward to either the battery location, or to the first bulkhead (by the rear seat) that has a location drilled for the aft battery. The ELT remote, elevator trim, battery cable, and strobe wiring, will all have to be routed here.  

Session time: 3.0 hours 

First task for today was to drill the rudder cable routing holes through the center section. I used a step bit (unibit) for the forward holes, but because of the bracket for mounting the floor plates, I could not do the same for the aft holes. I was able to get the aft hole started with a step bit, and then I used a number of incrementally larger bits through the forward hole. This allowed me to avoid hitting the floor mounting bracket. 

Here you can see the aft hole. It is drilled to 1/2″.

Unfortunately, the length of the 5/8″ drill bit, when combined with my drill, is too long. The drill hits the mounting for the fuel selector valve, and as a result I cannot access the aft hole at the proper angle. My 90 degree drill extension will not accept the 5/8″ bit (even with a reduced diameter shank. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do. To be honest, I think I may grind a portion of the drill bits shank to fit in my 90 degree extension. We’ll see if another idea presents itself. 

As I was stalled on the rudder routing, I turned my attention to a rudder fairing. Apparently they sell some overpriced ones on Aircraft Spruce and some other places, but I also found some simple instructions for a do-it-yourself version. First cut a piece of .020 to 4″x4″, then mark out the measurements show. Note that I messed up the outer lines. The correct lines are in red.

Start by bending the center to 90 degrees, and then bend the outer lines to 45 degrees. A hand seamer, some wood, and a vice are helpful. Here is the rudder cable exiting the fuselage in stock form.

Here is the fairing I made following the instructions I stole from another builder here. Note that the fairing overlaps the skin joint. To correct this, I marked the location of the skin joint and then measured and marked a symmetrical portion on the upper flange of the fairing. This picture isn’t great, as the fairing will sit a little bit lower on the left to not interfere with the hole for the attachment of the protective tube. 

Here is the result after trimming and priming. I plan to secure the fairing with pro-seal.