Section 31: "Doin some wirin"...

... As they say in the south!
Just started Section 31:

So, we are starting a new job as an electrician, new challenges, frustrations followed by small victories: this is the life of the VANs kit builder.
After a false start and messing-up a few terminal tabs and terminal blocks with Anne, we decided to skip this page:

 Reason to skip the page: Vans has come with a better solution to connect the wing wiring to the fuselage, i.e., a connector rather than the terminal blocks which have been a source of bad contacts with or without wings removal. I confirmed with Vans support that I can skip these steps, waiting for the retrofit which will come with the Skyview release in September.
Page 3 has a lot in it but little challenge.

Page 4, business as usual!

Page 5: Step 2 skipped, pending wing connector as explained earlier
Nothing real tricky, except for the fuel pump clamp attachment in step 4: tight quarters! You will need a special wrench and more...

Page 6:
This is the notorious issue of the Reed Switches that control that the wing stoppers are correctly latched, after wing install. There has been lots of posting on the subject in VAF Forum and I was expecting trouble. Guess what? Here is my VAF Forum final post on the subject after going through this ordeal:

I just spent the last two hours doing step 4, the testing of the reed switches. I was concerned after reading all what was posted on this tricky step and, sure enough, once everything was in place according to instructions, nothing was working. Reading the many postings on this issue did not clarify a lot what the issue is as there is a mix of problems mentioned, including those related to the first kits that got a retrofit later. I got a good lead when I read that it was useful to position the reed switch without the clamp. This allowed me to find out that the switch was kept too far from the arm rest by the cushion clamp. I just removed the rubber on both sides of the clamp where it contacts the arm rest and I reshaped the clamp to fit flat against the arm rest and lo and behold, this did the trick for both sides!

I saws that some enlarged the hole and even pushed the switch housing through the hole: no need to do that in my case. I just removed the 1/8 inch of casing indicated in the instructions so that the top of the casing aligns with the center of the hole of the switch. For the rest I followed the instructions.
I hope this will settle the questions raised about the engineering of this safety device: the only problem is the clamp and it is easy to fix.

Here is a picture of the modified clamp with the reed switch inserted:
Note that there is enough rubber left on the clamp to squeeze the reed switch gently but firmly

 

Look Ma, no Brakes!

It's what I could have said if I had proceeded with the finishing kit so, what happened?
After starting the wiring section with Anne, my favorite helper, I had to go back into the fuselage section to look-up some details. Oh! surprise! I discovered that I had missed a couple of pages that are dealing with the brakes plumbing. I had found bizarre to have 2 coils of plastic pipes left at the end of the fuselage works plus a few plumbing fixtures but did not worry because I thought that brake plumbing was done when the wheels are assembled in the finishing kit: wrong!
Once again, brake plumbing is a new learning curve to negotiate, different from gas plumbing because the fixtures are not the same. More later once I emerge from this new challenge.
Here are the pages I skipped:

Comments following completion of these brakes tasks:
The major difficulty is getting the fittings set-up as indicated in the first 3 steps of page 27-04. The problem stems from the fact that the plastic tubes have not a consistent inside diameter. For some the brass insert will go in easily for some it's impossible to push it in, even after dunking in boiling water if the sleeve is positioned as indicated. Here is my solution: I slide the sleeve further back and use the nut to push both the sleeve in position and the insert into the tube, whichever comes first. The rest of the job went well, I had only one question left about torquing the compression fittings after they installed are finger tight. Tony Tessitore reminded me that section 5 specifies page 5-12 to add one more turn after finger tight screwed: always read section 5 when dealing with new technology/process... and thanks Tony!