Category Archives: Seats

Centre Console, Instrument Panel, Internal Trim, Karen, Registration, Seatbelts, Seats, Spats

Saturday 20th July 2019

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Music: None today

Karen came to the airfield today to help get rid of the little air bubbles around each of the rivets on the wing, did a sterling job as well. We tried several positions for the side registration to see which would look better. Pete Thomas, a friend from the London Gliding Club is coming down on Monday to do the weight and balance so I started to add all the bits and pieces that need to be on the aircraft from the weighing.

The vinyl registration doesn’t sit well around each rivet that it covers. A little air bubble is present on nearly every one of them. Karen used a fine point to pierce the vinyl and then gently pressed out the air. The result was fantastic and a big thanks to Karen giving up some her weekend to help me.
Which looks better? aligning with the rivet line or …
…the paint line. We both decided that the paint line was a better option so the decision is made.
The spats need to go on as does the spinner and cowlings ready for weighing on Monday.
Application of the registration starts. Not many pictures here on how to do it as I was worried about mucking it up.
Part way though and it’s looking good. The next bit is to take a little of the spacing out between the ‘G’, ‘-‘ and the ‘M’ as it’ll look a bit better. I should have asked Pete from Mirage Signs to do that for me but I forgot!
The final look. Very pleased with the result.
A picture shows the inside of G-MLSY with all the seats and trim in place and a very happy me!
Carburettor, Registration, Seatbelts, Seats, Waterpump

Wednesday 10th July 2019

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Music: Lightening Seeds, The Beautiful South, Gerry Rafferty

Feel like I’m going backward as I need to do some remedial work to the water pump and replace the carburettor floats. But I have a few other things that I’ll do today which will get me back on track. I will o order the registration vinyls (that I have left far too late) and I’ll also be fitting the seatbelts.

The order that I’ve been waiting for was an 18mm x 1 fine pitch die to cut a little more thread on each water pump pipe. Fairly easy to do but I make to make sure that the die went on perfectly straight otherwise it might start cutting a new thread!
All done and sealed with Loctite. I’m going to leave it in position for a couple of days to fully cure before touching the pipes. Hopefully this will ensure I won’t have a repeat of the leak.
Now onto the floats. I spoke to CFS aero who are the importers for Rotax engines and they sent me a full set of new floats to replace those that were in my carbs. This is really a precautionary measure as I don’t know if the floats fitted are defective or not but I didn’t want to find out on the first flight!
To get to the float chambers I have to undo some of the work that I’ve done previously. First off are the carb drip trays…
…revealing the float bowl retaining clip. This is prised off to allow the bowl to be removed.
The flaots sit in the bowl and rise and fall on pins to retain them. Brings back memories when I used to play about with motorcycles when I was younger.
When refitting must make sure that I don’t damage this mechanism and ensure that the seal is seated correctly.
Then a refit of the carb drip trays before repeating the procedure on the other carb.
All done and back to home it was before my intervention.
Next on the agenda is to fit the seatbelts. Three bolts and nyloc nuts are used to secure them.
The top hole in the retaining mount is opened up to 11mm before the bolts can be fitted.
The top retaining strap is fitted first and tightened to pinch the fitting and then just eased off slightly to allow for some movement in operation.
The bolts with a ‘shoulder’ are then fitted to to the left and right seatbelt retaining brackets.
The top strap is too long to use as is so the seatbelt webbing needs to be modified by cutting and running through the retaining adjusters.
To stop the webbing flying in service I’ve sealed the ends with superglue. This may work ok but if it fails after some use I’ll seal with heat instead but this seemed a good solution.
With both side now done is was time to try out on a ‘real’ pilot so Pilot Pooh was given first go…