A little progress XL H-58

[Chuck in Indiana]

No. Tell me why there are no architects in heaven..
Wish I had your mad coping skilz. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

Fit up and ready to tack.

Engineering change complete. 

Headed out to the hardware store. Tomorrow should tell the tale.. fingers crossed that the Verner mount holes are where they say they are..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Assembly fit up and ready to tack.

Tacked it, took it off the fixture, and headed out to the engine to see if the mount holes would no kidding line up before finish welding.

Whew!  It's a pretty good buzz when things work out..
Time to make some dummy isolators so I don't set the rubber in them on fire. 
What's the purpose of all this, you say? Every mount I've seen on Youtube that actually works     is really heavy looking and complicated. This doesn't weigh much. Will it work? TBD.

[Theodore]

...Jesus was a carpenter

Thanks for the compliments on coping skills

[Chuck in Indiana]

Finish welded all that stuff and yay, the holes still line up. Need I say that it's pretty easy to warp a fairly complicated weldment? I'll try not to break my arm patting myself on the back. 
The mount holes on the Verner are .345". Weird dimension that fits nothing. I like to have a ream fit on aircraft fasteners, so used the mount as a reamer jig to ream for an AN6 and keep the hand drill perpendicular.



Sweat bullets a little.. after all these engines are NLA and the last time I looked they wanted $10,000 (!) for one.. but all is well.
Now, I have to figure out how to mount the ring to the airplane. I'll let that thought marinate overnight. 

[Chuck in Indiana]

After sleeping on it  here's what I came up with. These are 3/8" ejector pins used in mold making. They are hardened, ground, and straight.

I drew 4 2X4s on the cad drawing, and printed two full scale drawings. Cut a piece of plywood, put center lines on it, and stapled and glued one of the drawings on it. Spent some time setting up the table saw to be square and cut the 4 2X4s. Screwed them down where the drawing said.

Since I had drilled the engine mount fixture on the cnc, the mount holes are perpendicular and a tap fit for the ejector pins. Lined the pins up with the drawing on the firewall, and screwed the fixture down.

You can barely see the 2X4s sitting right where they should be on the fixture drawing as a check to be sure I didn't screw up. 
I've always said I do my best work in bed..
Done for the weekend. I need to run to Indy to pick up some 4130.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I'm baaaak. (Ahnold reference)  We've been out in SoCal making it rain for the last month or so. *somebody's* gotta do it, and I have a super power. That means of course, that I couldn't ride my motorcycle, but I took one for the team.
Let's see now.. where were we? Oh, yeah.. mounting the engine. Bolted up the weldment I made last year to the canvas bakelite piece, and screwed that to the 2X4s. You can see the aluminum pieces that replace the vibration dampers to keep from burning up the rubber when welding.

Now, I need to make some spools that bolt to the firewall, and then it's just a simple matter of fitting tubes between the mount, firewall, and welding. (he said, knowing there will be issues.) 
If I had thought this through, I'd have had the water jet guy cut these out, too. Probably would only have charged a couple of dollars extra. Oh, no.. I'd rather take an hour or two, lay them out, drill, ream, make them round on the lathe.
Dummy. 

That's it for today. Stay tuned..

[Chuck in Indiana]

Fit up and tacked all the tubes. Since I don't have Theodore's mad coping skillz  it took all...freakin...day. Tacked it all up, and whew. I didn't weld it to the mounting bolts, one of my biggest fears. The bolts came right out.

I'd bead blasted the crap out of the bolts (to get rid of the plating) and ground flats on them to still hold location, but give a minimal area for the weld to stick.
I think I've mentioned before that I love it when a plan comes together? 

Tweeeet! Quitting time. It's beer o'clock.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Mickey Mouse setup to ream the mount tubes after welding..

Checked fitup and it still bolts to the firewall. 
Yay.. bolted right up to the engine.

Another bite off the elephant.

[miniman]

Hey Chuck, you do excellent work! But you knew that  Do you come back and reheat the tig welded areas for stress relief?

[Chuck in Indiana]

Hey Chuck, you do excellent work! But you knew that  Do you come back and reheat the tig welded areas for stress relief?

Thanks, and welcome to the forum. I was always a fan of heating after TIG welding, but my understanding is if you use the correct rod it is not necessary. Just the same, I gas welded the engine mount, and other areas where I wasn't comfortable with TIG. TIG has been a learning process for me, and I used this project to force myself to learn how to (sort of) do it.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Alrighty, now..

Naturally, ol'Bullet is nose heavy without the tail or wings on.. so I was rummaging around looking for something small and heavy to put in the back.. well, duh.  A couple of thousand bullets will do the job.

And.. well.. I just had to look at it for a while and stick the prop on there. (shrug)

Hmmm, looks like that should be adequate power.  Time to start seriously thinking about a fuel and oil tank.

[Kamcoman77]

Beautiful work as usual. Looks like an Ed Sterba prop. Is it?

[Chuck in Indiana]

Beautiful work as usual. Looks like an Ed Sterba prop. Is it?

Thanks, and yeah.. Ed's an old friend from back in the Sonerai days. I'm still running one of his props on Mouser.

[Chuck in Indiana]

One of the banes of my existence is fuel in the wing. Looking back over the years, I've had nothing but trouble with leaking tanks and senders. Cut the fabric, remove the tank, repair the leak, put it back in, baseball stitch the fabric back over the tank, paint, etc.
Also.. I have visions of cracking that delicate leading edge trying to fill the tank with a 5 gallon can.
So.
I dummied up a 5 gallon tank.
3 point attitude. Seeing forward is overrated. 

Level flight..

I don't like it. I'd have to have two outlets, a remote shutoff, and if I had a sight gauge, it would interfere with the stick at full down..and.. my leg getting in. I really don't like adding complication or weight. (grumble grumble.) I'll spend the rest of the day seeing what others have done. If anyone has an answer, I'm all ears.