Amorphous M7/M6 Rebuild Project

[asa]

In the past 72 hours I have gotten a lot better with sheet metal work... Still never enough cleco's in the world as far as I'm concerned.

Got the boot cowls done, with the exception of final debur/prep/paint/cowl fasteners and riveting them on. That will all come later.

It all starts like this...


I fit the old boot cowls to the fuselage prior to duplicating them so there was lots of notes, markings, etc on them to make changes when I made new ones.


Putting them on. This was after getting the forward and bottom holes lined up, then I match drilled the holes along the door frame. In these pics the copilot side doesn't have the stiffening bend in the top yet so the top edge is a little curved up. I thought it would be better to do that after making sure the holes fit but that was dumb. On the pilot side I bent it prior to fitting and it worked better.




Complete pilot side. Had to steal cleco's from the firewall rivets to use elsewhere. Have an order of more arriving tomorrow.


Satisfying...


All the forward sheet metal cleco'd in place. I put the panel structure in to make sure the clearances and everything was good.

[asa]

Less than 4 weeks until I leave for Alaska for 4 months....

Today's agenda was getting the old fuselage out and into long term (forever?) storage. Made room for my parts collection. Also knocked out the boot cowl window. Much easier to do it when you can remove the boot cowl than cutting it in-place like I did on the M7. Made some doubler angles out of 0.032. Also probably my best luck working with acrylic so far. I used a score-and-break method for the first time for all 4 edges which worked surprisingly well and made a clean edge.





The blue hand punch in this picture is the MVP of sheet metal work. Quick, clean, perfect holes every time, 6 size options.




If all this fresh new metal on a 40 year old airplane doesn't get you turned on, I'm not sure what will.

[asa]

Still waiting for parts from powdercoat for the control column, rudder pedal tubes, flap handle, etc which is holding me up a little in the controls/cables area. Figured I'd move to the panel for a bit.

I started mounting the radio racks onto the panel frames so I can start planning the wiring harnesses and all. EDM900 bottom left. Center bottom will stay blank in case I want another AV30 later. I ay even run the wires for the second AV30 and have a hole for the CB but not install. Aera660 up top in center stack. Haven't chosen an intercom but might put it in the black space below transponder. That's exactly the height of a PM3000 (1.25").







Pretty tight in a few spots. I'll have to move my radios out 0.25" to accommodate the cooling fan on the GTR 225. I had the faceplate flush with the panel previously. All my left side instruments clear, and test fitted the AV30 in the bottom hole to make sure it would work there. Those things are tiny so they fit about anywhere.





Started thinking about my removable switch/CB panels. Since the lower panel is not removable once in place (without removing ALL engine controls, yokes, etc), all the electrical components will be on these. Rivnuts in the lower panel will hold them on. One on the left will be my main power bus with switches and CBs. There's an avionics power CB switch on the left that will send power to the avionics power bus over on the copilot side. The center area of the panel near engine controls won't have any electrical.

My first thought was to include the mag switch on the removable panel however I have since changed my mind. I'm going to mount it hard to the lower panel instead, I mean really how often does anyone mess with their ignition switch?

[gdflys]

When you get to the point of mounting the modular panels to the frame can you share detailed pics of the mounting as well as the center stack frame buildup? I may be going down this road with the avionics upgrade in the near future. Thanks looks great.

[Old Piper]

Asa, I suggest this would be a good time to install LED lights to illuminate the lower panel. It gets dark in those areas too, you might put them on a separate switch. Also suggest a LED that’s on the same circuit tied to your gage LEDs pointing at your flap handle/trim area. And last a switched white LED down at your floor to find what you may have dropped along the night cruise. All easy to install, light and makes a big difference when needed.

Don’t forget map and reading light for front and back seats, and cargo.

[asa]

Asa, I suggest this would be a good time to install LED lights to illuminate the lower panel. It gets dark in those areas too, you might put them on a separate switch. Also suggest a LED that’s on the same circuit tied to your gage LEDs pointing at your flap handle/trim area. And last a switched white LED down at your floor to find what you may have dropped along the night cruise. All easy to install, light and makes a big difference when needed.

Don’t forget map and reading light for front and back seats, and cargo.

Any elegant ideas for lighting the lower panel? There are 3 post lights for ASI/VSI/Alt. All the other instruments/radios have internal auto-dim lighting. Was also planning a dim red under panel light to illuminate flaps/trim/floor. I don't like post lights but I have like 20 from the old panel so they are free and easy and I only need 3. Could throw couple more on for the lower panel I guess. Only thing down there that would be useful to be lit would be left switch panel and throttle/prop/mixture.

I really never fly at night so I'm not going crazy and am leaning towards simplicity. It's probably less than 0.3% of my flying. I avoid it. I'm actually not planning any dimmers or switches for now. Putting the cockpit lighting on the nav light switch.


Moving forward with this overall panel layout for the time being. Copilot upper panel is blank except the headset jacks. Probably won't get to wiring before I leave for alaska except I may start on the power distribution (simple) side of things. Don't want to leave for 4 months in the middle of building complicated harnesses.



Hard to see but thats main power bus on left side. Middle section only has Parking Brake, Throttle, Prop, Mixture, Alt Air, Rudder Trim. Right side is avionics power bus. Going for clean, simple, efficient, serviceable.


Switched (haha) to Maule's current method which is breaker switches. Some of my old switches felt "loose" internally and the so decided to make the change.


Put some primer on the inside of the belly skin so will rivet that on with the oleo boots and should have the plane on it's gear later in the week.

[andy]

Good idea to switch to separate toggle switches and breakers. You can't get the combination rocker switches anymore and sooner or later one of them is going to break. It's a big deal to change them all so now is the time.

I don't like post lights either. They become intermittent over time and the tiny incandescent bulbs burn out. What about LED Nulite ring lights for the ASI, VSI and Alt? https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/ ... -13935.php

I don't fly much at night either but I replaced my Q4509 incandescent landing light with a LED Whelen Parmethius about 7 years ago and haven't regretted it. It's much brighter during the day for visibility to other aircraft and it won't fail suddenly due to vibration or thermal shock like the Q4509. I've been in the situation where I didn't expect to fly at night but ended up that way during a long cross country. My old Q4509 failed on me once when I was landing at night on a dimly lit runway in the boondocks. It ended well but I'd prefer not to repeat the experience.

[asa]

Controls components finally back from powdercoat. Installed rudder bar/pedals, control column, assembled flap lever assembly.

[asa]

Did the install of the hydraulic parking brake mod tonight. It uses a valve like ACA had on my scout, rather than the standard maule method of a plate that jams the master cylinder shaft. Since the valve is inline, it requires a couple extra hoses so made those from aeroquip 303 and replaced all the other brake lines while I was at it. First time building hoses but wasn't bad with the proper tools. ATS sells the mandrels for $20 rather than the $150 that the aeroquip ones cost.

Still need to rig the control cable to operate the valve. This mod would be a huge pain in the ass if the firewall was in place.

[maules.com]

Asa, a thank you is in order for your efforts at photo documenting this build for the Maule crowd, most useful.
Also, nice touch, the appropriate color brake cylinder plugs.
And a word about the serrated brake push rods. Important to check they are straight. Heavy foot pressure in the days of single puck brakes had a tendency to bend them, exacerbated by the brake lock plate.

[norcal64d]

Nice and shiny looking parts! Some tricks for making hoses that you may already know but may help are 1) use a more lubricating oil than you think you need when assembling, 2) if you're having problems with the outer sleeve ripping at all during assembly, try to not stop turning the mandrel down into the hose until you reach the right depth, and 3) I also like to put tape around the base of the outer part during assembling so I can see if the hose was pushed out of the fitting during assembly.

[asa]

Thanks Jeremy! The plane has one of each type of brake master cylinder - one smooth shaft (with makes in it from parking brake) and one serrated shaft as seen in the picture. I'll check that the shafts are straight.

Tim, I had heard a few of those tricks and I found a few of my own once I started. Hardest part for me was getting the nipple/mandrel pushed down in enough to start the threads engaging without wanting to strip those first couple "half threads". Of course right when I was finished, I was getting the hang of it.

Put the plane on its tailwheel (was on a stand) so I could put on the rudder so I could build the rudder cables in place. I overthought it of course.. do I build it with turnbuckle in the middle of it's range, or do I put turn buckle towards one end since it's more likely that I'll need to tighten it later... probably would've turned out the exact same either way but the rudder/pedals/cables are now rigged correctly which feels nice. Put the firewall/egress on to make sure I wasn't hitting the pedals o brake lines on anything and made sure the rudder hit its stops before the pedals hit theirs .Getting accustomed to melting holes in my oratex, too

[asa]

Test fit old aileron loop cable to make sure all is good before I recreate it on the bench with new cable. Spoiler - all was good.



Rivetted belly skin onto fuselage. Ended up priming the inside of this panel, exterior will be bare aluminum. Mounted landing gear and oleos. Mounted flap handle/ratchet assembly as well as elevator push rod and bellcrank.

[asa]

Today was wheels and brakes. Got the wheels and calipers mounted and filled the system with fluid. Having a hell of a time getting the right brake to bleed properly, left is good. The copilot right pedal is firm but pilot is soft so I'm thinking theres air bubbles between the two. Will try to take off the cylinders and bleed it with them strung up vertically. Sure is nice to not have a firewall and boot cowl in place for this kind of work. Thought I had a couple leaks but in reality the only leak was in my brain and a call to Andy Young fixed all that.

Looks like a bug on those long legs.


Big fan of Maule's new style axle nut and clip. No cotter pin required.


Rigged the control for hydraulic parking brake so I could test it out. Works like a charm, very satisfying.


Filling its veins with the blood of christ.


Moved to other end of airplane and ran the wires in the rudder. Trying to be forward thinking so I did a power, ground, and a 2conductor shielded. TailbeaconX would require all of these. Normal nav light or tailbeacon would of course just use the power/ground. I think I'll do a molex connector between the fuselage and rudder with heat shrink over it to protect from weather.

[wtxdragger]

Really enjoy the updates, seems like an unsurmountable task, but I see so much progress in such a short time.