Hi All, After finishing the retracts/ actuator, I moved on to the rudder peddle mounts. They had been partially installed with reg. hardware grade bolts. As I was removing the bolts/nuts, I noticed that one side of the shelf that the rudder peddles mount to was loose. Upon further investigation I found that one of the gusset blocks that support the piece for the lower engine mount had a crack at the glue joint. This did not look good , so I decided to remove the metal sheet and angle for the cowling mounts that had been on since I bought the plane, I found that the surface of the firewall was discolored, with a little bit of surface delimitation. I then decided to pull off the firewall to see what kind of integrity there was to the firewall and firewall supports. It took me no more then two min with a wood chisel and hammer to pop off the firewall. And that's what it did.... It just popped off, with almost no wood pulled. Only on one side. The bottom engine mount support came right off with the firewall. A couple of the gussets came off too. I don't think it would of held even an engine run up.
I got an appointment with a local EAA advisor today and he concluded that the firewall / attach area is the only part that is affected. I should be able to rebuild to acceptable integrity. So I will rebuild the firewall and firewall supports........ then I can get those rudder peddles mounted. Any comments are welcome, but please send them to my email. As always , pictures are at, http://kr2az.spaces.live.com/ PS. I also added some areal photos of S. AZ, and the field that I fly from ( Flying Diamond). Tim Kelley Sahuarita, AZ KR2r ( building) Fisher 202 ( flying ) _________________________________________________________________ Access your email online and on the go with Windows Live Hotmail. http://windowslive.com/Explore/Hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_hotmail_acq_access_112008
