So today had a bit of an absurd theme going on. My intent going in was to install the engine control cables temporarily so I could have then in place around the engine as I worked through routing the assorted wires and stuff. What I wanted to do was to actually rig the cables to the throttle quadrant, with the hopes that I might not have to remove it later on. For various reasons, that didn’t happen.
Farce #1 came after I retrieved the throttle quadrant and cleaned it off. The next thing I needed was the cable anchor bracket, which, well, anchors the ends of the cables. I spent a full hour looking for that thing, doing the circuit around the shop (shelves? nope. big work table? nope other tables? nope. in the fuselage? nope) and gradually moving more and more stuff around, until…I found it sitting IN PLAIN SIGHT in the fuselage.
sigh
Well, at least I found it…I was getting to the point of considering just fabricating a new one, glad I didn’t have to do that. This, however, led directly into farce #2. The control cables attach to the quadrant levers with clevises and pins. I just had to find those clevises, because surely they came with the kit, right? Well, I dug through all the hardware bags I had and found nothing like that. Then I did my usual next step when I’m looking for hardware – I pulled out the kit pick lists and went through those. Sometimes this helps me know the bag number and maybe figure out where that bag might be stashed.
Well, long story short, I didn’t find any of the proper clevises in any of the pick lists. Apparently they’re not included with the kit after all, and I need to figure out the right parts and make yet another Aircraft Spruce order.
sigh again
I almost gave up on the whole thing right there, but after sitting (and yes, stewing) a bit, I realized that I was overly focused on rigging the cables to the levers. While it’d be nice to get that done, it wasn’t necessary. Just having them mounted to the cable anchor would be enough to see what the routing would look like. Any adjustments at the anchor to fit up with the levers wouldn’t make any real difference in the routing.
So I went ahead and installed the cables that way, knowing the entire time that I’d definitely be removing them again. That’s OK, it’s not like there’s anything else on the plane that hasn’t been installed repeatedly…
So here we are with the cable routing. Center cable is for the prop governor, and routes over to behind the engine. The other two are throttle and mixture, and they go under the sump to the injector servo. The eyeball fittings ensure that everything is locked down just as it would be for the real installation:
And just for fun, we can look at the cables routing through the fuselage from the firewall to the gear tower. It’s going to be a little snug in here once the scat tubing for the cabin air vent is installed:
Not pictured here: I also went back to planning the main power distribution stuff. As part of this, I modified the cable between the master and started contactors; I’d fabricated that some time ago, but I didn’t care for the routing, especially how it would interact with the other stuff I’m planning. I’m actually still thinking of replacing that cable with a copper bus bar. That would be a much more compact option, but the potential problem is that given the way the contactors are mounted, it might make maintenance difficult. The flexible cable is much easier to install here than a rigid bus bar would be. If I do the bus bar, the end result will probably be that one of the contactors will have to be removed in order to free up the bar. Which isn’t really that bad, I suppose…if I need to remove the bar, chances are it’s because I’m replacing a contactor. Anyway, more food for thought…