1.5 hrs. mostly on the dash.

I uncleco'ed the dash and moved it up to my new understanding of the position.  Which is....

...this.  20 mm from the top of the interior skin to the indicated corner of the dash.

With that held in position I started to drill and cleco.  Before getting too far I confirmed that the line up with the center console was good.

All cleco'ed in place and this fits like a glove.

Some holes I could use the same dash hole, but for most I moved over about a 1/4" to drill an all-new hole (because it was too close to the old hole in the skin).  Doesn't matter that that hole is visible here because it gets covered later by the exterior fiberglass piece which covers the bottom of the windscreen.

Like!

I was told it's better to start the install process of the fuel switch sooner rather than later (thanks Bob!), so I'll start that process when I take the dash back off soon.

I saw on Jim's blog that there is a newer gascolator to consider, so I'll look into that.

It was brought to my attention that my dash may be too low...  Unfortunately this is not specified in the manual and my discussion with the factory resulted in apparently ambiguous guidance.

Since I haven't riveted it yet (it would be basically impossible to change if I had), I'm going to go ahead and re-drill the holes, which isn't a big deal.

I will post some photos once I get this done over the weekend.  BUT, I strongly suggest you contact the factory for clarification when you get to this point.  If I haven't said this already, I'll say it now, my blog is not the Sling 4 construction manual.  If the manual is not clear on something - contact the factory.  Do not assume that I have it 100% correct.  If what you hear back from the factory is not 100% unambiguous, clear and to your complete satisfaction, ask for photos and/or diagrams until there is no question as to what is meant.

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3 hrs. mostly on the dash.

The right side without it being pushed to line up with the canopy

Pushed into place and you can see the hole locations change.

Time to make some brackets to pull the sides together.

Some quick Google'ing taught me a good knot for this is a Double Fisherman's Knot.  This worked well.

Now to make sure that the top of the dash sides is 20mm above the interior skin. EDIT: This is likely the wrong vertical positioning.  See posts after this for the correct positioning.

Also make sure the dash sides are pushed up against the canopy lip.  While I held it in position I drilled the first two holes (3.2mm) and reamed them out with my chucking reamer (size for 4mm rivets) and then cleco'ed them.

Same on the other side.

Note that despite making sure everything everything was lined up against the canopy and the proper vertical position I found that the center hole of the dash was slightly off-center of the fuselage.  I think if I tried to get that centered it would have resulted in one side being well off the canopy lip and that's visible, whereas the center rivet of the dash will not be.

And this lines up too, so I think my positioning is as perfect as could be expected.

Does the dash go under the throttle assembly?  Tight fit if so.  Trying to put the dash on top of it seems impossible though.  I'll check some factory photos.

:-)

It was time for my periodic workshop cleaning.  Makes me more ready to tackle the next tasks.

One of which was to shorten the center console back cover which was a bit long and difficult to fit.  First I had to peel off the leather.

With a bit more than a 1/8" sawed off I glued the leather back down.  Should be much better.

4 hrs. on the dash/panel.

So, it turns out that the tape I put down yesterday was the wrong stuff...  This is the right stuff.  A friend brought over 3M brand Very High Bond (VHB) tape, so I just used that instead of the no-name generic you see here (though I'm sure it would have been fine).

Tape on and time to drill the holes.  10mm from the edge and 100mm apart. 17 holes: 1 in the middle and 8 on each side.

The painter's tape is there to keep the covering on the double-sided tape since I don't want it to bond to the fuselage yet.  Here the holes are drilled (#30 bit, which is smaller than the final size.  I'll use a chucking reamer bit to do that when it's ready to be installed).

Kerry was over to help with putting the panel back into the dash and the dash on the plane.  I'll drill the holes through and cleco the dash down (after I've made sure it is positioned perfectly), but I will definitely not be riveting it in place until all the firewall work is done (including all the wires and other stuff that has to go through).  I will leave it in a state where it's just a few minutes to pull it back off to do that work.

I like it!

It's a LONG way from the dash to the firewall...  When the dash is finally installed I will have to connect the panel's grounds to the grounding block on the firewall.  I have no idea how I'm going to do that.  If the stick weren't there I could fairly easily lie on my back, but with that in the way it looks difficult to get in that position.  How have others done this??

Well, I really wanted to see it powered up in place, so I just tied together all the grounds, plugged the connectors into the VPX box and connected both of those to the power supply I have.  Nice!

A quick video tour:

2 hrs. on the dash.

My order for various gauges of wire (Tefzel) arrived.

After trying several methods to try and remove the screw, none worked, so I ended up drilling off the head.

Some of the tools I used to remove the screw - didn't work...

Even filed notches in my narrow-nosed locking pliers - didn't work...

Removing two of the problem rivnuts ended up slightly enlarging the holes and being concerned that the new rivnuts wouldn't fit tight I decided to upsize them to M5's.  With that I enlarged the corresponding holes in the panel.

Is this the double-sided tape that's supposed to go under the lip of the dash?  Seems to be except it's not double-sided, but only one side is sticky.

Well, I put it in.  If it's not the right stuff I can strip it off.  Seems right though because I assume it's for sealing the seam and this stuff would do it.

Quick half hour evening up the two fiberglass sides of the dash.

It probably doesn't matter because I think the outer cover overlays this, but this side is narrower than...

... this side.  So when it's on the fuselage, this side hangs down lower (so it would be riveted lower too).  That bothered me, so I wanted to even it up.  At least so both sides are roughly equal in width.

This is my approximation to match the other side (I did measure, but it's not a consistent width at all, so I just measured in a few places and matched them).

I feel better now. ;-)