Progress

I've finally got my engine back after the bulk strip, and yes she looks good. I had a few mods done during the bulk strip, I had the cam shaft drilled to aid oil lubrication of the cam lobes and the lifters, there wasn't any signs of wear during the inspection, Lycomings do have a history of cam lobe wear so I thought it was a good idea to have it done now, I also had some mild porting of the inlet and exhaust ports to help with inlet breathing and exhaust flow.

It took me a few days to bolt on the engine baffling, carbie and prop governor, when it came time to hang the engine it only took around a half hour, I thought it was going to be a difficult one man job but it all just came together without any real problems, yet another few days to re-connect the engine controls and governor and re-adjust the cable lengths for full travel at the stops.

Another few days to sort out the wire loomes on each side, splicing the EGT and cylinder head temp wires together, routing the starter cables, alternator cables and then lace tying the wires to keep them all together and give the engine bay a bit more of a professional look, What your looking at here is an accumulation of over 2 weeks worth of work, lace tying is rough on the fingers and very time consuming but worth it in the end.

More and more of the little things are starting to come together, I spent a lot of time sorting out the cowl pin covers, getting the right contour then positioning the covers and screws, you can see how much of a difference they make to the look of the cowl, I had to do a bit of rework to the inlet scoops to clean up the seam lines and add a new parting flange to screw into. Another part that has been taking a while to get right is the wheel fairings, I must have spent hours just measuring the fairings to make sure they were inline with each other and sitting at the same hight. Hours and hours of gluing, shaping and sanding to get the shape and contour flowing, still more hours of sanding of spray filler to get rid off thousands of pin holes followed by more spray filler and, yep more sanding.

Cowl pin cover

Tonight I fitted the engine cowling to help the new baffling seals to sit in the correct position, I think it might be a bit of a hassle to fit the cowling by myself until they start to get a memory and shape with the top cowl fitted. With the cowling on, canopy sitting there she is starting to look awesome, still loads more things to sort out, Cabin side panels, routing the fuel lines out of the cabin floor area, centre consol and many more months before I think I'll be happy with the way she is.

LH wheel fairing, looking sweeeet... 

Tomorrow I'll start on the canopy, it is getting so close to finishing the assembly, I still have to check a few things, do some more trimming before the final assembly. Once I get the canopy together most of the large items will be restored. I am still waiting no the empennage, its been over 8 months since it was loaded into a container in California, last Thursday I drove 2hrs north to Gympie to go and pick it up, I was told that it's there ready and waiting, when I arrived I found that there had been a mixup with the shipping manifest and the box with my empennage returned to the shipping company to be cleared by customs, ahhhhh.. The shipping company is now set to extract more money out of my hip pocket along with customs, fingers crossed they aren't too brutal..
Watch this space..