Well, went out this morning to the hangar and commenced to some minor
aircraft work.. nothing spectacular...
 
My first minor project was drilling bolt heads for safety wire.. I
tapped 2 of the M6x1x25 hardware store bolts (that I had bought for the
pan mounting ) for safety wiring. I then took the pickup tube and spacer
and used Permatex to mate them together, then permatex'd and bolted the
tube and spacer assembly to the block. My next experiment was my first
at safety wiring "properly". I ended up making about 2-3 tries at it
before I was satisfied that the wire arrangement would not allow the
bolts to loosen.. minimal bloodshed and looks pretty good.
 
I spent some time dressing the oil pan for preliminary mounting,
including cleaning out shavings from some minor surgery I did on it last
week. The stock pan has a baffle in one corner that deflects spray from
the rear pressure regulator. However, these baffles interfere with
mounting flush against the CCI mounting plate, so we dremeled them off
and deburred it during my last hangar session. After removing old gasket
material and wire brushing the pan, I turned to the engine. I ran 4
small  M6x1x25 hardware bolts into the block through the mount maybe a
turn or two.. just enough to hold, then I picked up the block using the
engine hoist. This gave me a uniform gap of about 1/4" to work in around
the perimeter of the mounting plate. I brushed on permatex to the top of
the plate and the bottom of the engine and set up a liberal coat as best
I could. I then cinched the bolts down slowing, drawing the engine back
down to the mount and allowing some time for the permatex to start to
set up before it was compressed between the two surfaces. I let this sit
for a bit, and of course let all the tension off the hoist. I then took
after the pan and brushed the permatex on the pan flange and bottom of
the mounting plate. Painting uphill with runny sealant was a challenge
and my fingers STILL have a protective gasket coating on them.. But I
was able to mate those surfaces and ran in about 14 of the hardware
store bolts, to cinch the pan snug.
 
It was at this point I realized that mounting the pan/engine would be a
little tricky. The rear/aft portion of the CCI mount has a crosspiece
underneath the pan that runs along the bottom side of the pan
flange/bolt line. This interferes to the point that two holes are unable
to have a socket placed on bolts located in them, and 4 or 5 more holes
are inaccessible with proper length bolts. The most obvious solution is
to remove the corner shock mount bolts to allow lifting the mounting
plate off the remainder of the frame. I dont have the documentation
handy from the CCI mount. If Fred or anyone else here with the info is
able to, let me know the procedure to remove and reinstall the shock
mount bolts to allow access to the rear line of pan mounting bolts. With
Chris's current schedule its difficult for us to catch up with each
other lately, so if someone from here gets back to me before he does
regarding this, all the better.
 
On a side note, yes, I am using hardware store bolts at the moment..
they are temporary only. I will be going to the bolt shop today or
tomorrow and getting some grade 8 metric bolts. I would like to poll the
audience however, regarding methods of safetying the bolts. Any
experience with safety wire on this number of bolts? Lock washers? Star
Washers? Locktite? Looking back I wish I had safetywired the Tension
Bolts on the engine rebuilt, simply in case one sheared it wouldnt risk
hitting anything by sliding out, but thats not a realistic option
without rebuilding the engine at this point (we had a real snug fit with
all the silicone and shrinkwrap on the bolts)
 
On a side note, Chris put the AN fittings on the aluminum tubing that
runs from the oil cooler in the nose to the aft bulkhead. Pictures to
follow.
 
Dave


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