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July 2004
We spent most of the month sorting the brakes and the metal engine firewall. The firewall is a very tricky bit of work. It required great skill, dexterity and lots of swearing so this was Peter's job. The finger brakes are a simple assembly job - so Ian did this. As we couldn't get the fittings we needed from Europa, we bought some nice lightweight steel mesh tube from a racing car supplier. It looks great, but no one will ever see it because all the tubing is concealed.

The (almost) finished firewall

Finger brake assembly

August 2004
The month started with a success story. A friend of Peter's - Bernie Palumbo - very kindly donated a fantastic hydraulic engine lift. This made really easy work of fitting the engine for the first (possibly the last?) time.


The rest of the month was spent rolling around on the floor. We had loads of problems getting the finger brakes to work. The cylinders needed stripping, cleaning and modifying. Then we had a series of leaks. We are sick of bleeding brakes.

We also had a useful visit from Richard Holder, owner of G-OWWW. He told us how he built his instrument panel and gave us lots of good ideas. We also went to have a look at the Dynon EFIS. We think we will instal one.

We kept coming up with reasons why we could not make progress without the fuselage top being bonded on. So we took the decicion to do it on 4 September, and Ian and Irene Rickard offerd to come and help. Before that, we played at being pilots just to get a feel for it!

September 2004
The 4th September was our Big Day. Bonding the top on is a milestone and many people have made it sound tricky. So we scuff sanded everything, made sure it all fitted, removed various loose tools from the soon to be inaccesible back end then Irene Rickard got out her icing bag and we'd finished the job within an hour. Here are some pictures:

later