March 21, 2024

The tech counselor Dale checked the wings before closing.

We discussed the fuel tank placement. He recommended to use silicon caulk as a cushion.

Dale recommended to use aluminum or teflon fuel lines. I will think.…

March 15, 2024

Making access covers.

No dimpling or countersinking. Exactly like Zenith demonstrator has. The rivets heads are almost flat, the plane is slow. A tiny gap does not make a performance difference.

March 09, 2024

Checked leak in the left tank fuel sender. Tilted the tank and put 5G of gas. Waited for 6 hours. No leak detected.

March 03, 2024

Added cork to the left fuel tank bottom. The tank shape does not fit well the wing shape. Had to add a lot of cork to make the tank stable inside the wing.

See the number of cork laters on the picture.

50 ft of cork Zenith provided will not be enough.…

March 02, 2024

Started adding cork to the fuel tank. The original fit is loose. I had to add 3 layers on the front L angles.

Tried to see it I can remove the tank with the fitting screwed in. I cannot. It means I will check fuel leaking with the tank in place.

Checked how the top skin hole matches the tank fuel neck. They match.…

February 27, 2024

Riveted the left wing craddles to support wires and lines.

Fabricated wing supports for pitot tubes and return fuel line. I will rivet them to the wing skin angle.…

January 17, 2024

Checked the fuel sender arm is bent correctly. I used the technique described here: 6k1b-fuel-sender.pdf
Drilled the hole for the fuel sender using a circle cutter from Harbor Freight. Deburred the edges.

January 16, 2024

Bent the fuel sender arm accordingly to 75-KA-1.pdf.
Checked the fuel sender resistance range. The full range is about 4-73 ohms. When installed in the tank it will be less.

January 09, 2024

Made a simple strap duplicator to drill to hole for the AN3 bolt in the root of the spar angle.

January 01, 2024

Drilled spar root angle. It was easy to drill the holes for the rivets. It is not quite clear how to drill the hole for the AN3 bolt in the root. Probably I will made my own strap duplicator.

December 31, 2023

Drilled up to the size all the wholes in the top root skin including ribs up to the size 20.
Bent and filed the root spar angle. It fits reasonably well.

December 20, 2023

Drilled the angles.
Bent and started drilling root top skin angles.

December 18, 2023

Fabricated the back and front part of the wing root angle.

Used a strap duplicator to drill holes in the angle without enlarging the existing holes in the skin and the ribs.…

December 18, 2023

Drilled the top spar. Clecoed the top skin.
Drilled one hole incorrectly. Drilled two additional holes around it using the same technic I used for fixing the holes in the bottom spar.

December 17, 2023

Clecoed the top skin. Preparing to drill the top spar.…

December 16, 2023

Drilled holes for the Pitot tube. Used a step drill.

Added angles to the wing top skin. I do not have a room to move the wing from the workbench quickly. I placed the top skin on sawhorses. I decided it would be better to have access to both sides of the skin when riveting. I set the skin vertically.…

December 12, 2023

Riveted the flapperon arms. All rivets on the arm near the tank are set the blind side toward the tank to reduce a possible interference.

Since I did not set the rivets in the skin near the arms the riveting was smooth. I had not had to remove any rivets to make a room for the rivet tool.…

December 11, 2023

Leveled the wing. Used a laser guide to level. Much more convenient than a bubble or digital angle finder.

January 5, 2024

I made an error when drilling the bottom spar. While drilling the skin moved a bit. Because of this all holes in the spar look ugly.

I suspect it happend bacause I tried to use cleco #40. Instead I probably had to drill #40 and immadiately #30. I was not able to set cleco #40 firmly. Cleco #30 was set hard without any problem.

Because of some reasons it took me a very long time to contact Zenith and ask what options I have to fix my error.

It looks like I…

November 13, 2023

Started the pilot wing.
Removed the incorrect spar root angle. Started drilling and deburring the ribs.