Final Details before DAR Time

I am back from Mexico and all revved up to work on the plane. I have only a short list of things to do before calling in the DAR for the airworthiness inspection. Of course, we are supposed to get a foot of snow tomorrow, which may keep me away from the hangar for all or most of the weekend. Here are a few of the finish up things I am working on.

Above are some of the vinyl graphics I had made. Thanks to my friend Joe Dale at Denron Sign for his great work. I have graduated markings for the sight gauges, door labels and even markings for my fuel dip stick.
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Here is my fancy fuel dip stick with the vinyl labels at the marks I made when calibrating the tanks. It looks way better than my first try with a Sharpie and a ruler.

I will paint it with 2 coats of epoxy to seal it and to keep it from picking up a fuel smell. I will keep it on the seatback pocket on the copilot's side and use it as my over center safety stick as well.

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I bought an HID landing light from Duckworks. After measuring the space between the existing light and speaking with the nice folks there, we concluded that this should fit. I hope it does. This baby puts out many times the light of the standard incandescent, uses less power and won't burn out. I can't wait to mount it.

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After reading about the unfortunate loss of a Velocity for lack of an extinguisher, I got a small H3R halon unit. The pencil is there for scale. It comes with a mount and I'll have to find an unobtrusive place in reach to mount it.

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I spoke with the Designated Airworthiness Representative who will be inspecting my plane. He insists that I have an emergency fuel shutoff which is reachable by the pilot in flight. Can't fight City Hall, so another order to Aircraft Spruce.

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Here is the mount for the emergency fuel shut off cable. I am going to mount it here on the keel, on the pilot side, just below the seat pan and just aft of the leading edge of the seat in it's rear most position. This keeps it out of sight but easily accessible. It also keeps the cable run down to just over 7 feet. It follows the wire bundle to the whale tail, over to the copilot's side to an adel standoff, then a Z bend into a hole in the shutoff valve handle on the sump tank.

I hope to have photos of the finish labeled sight gauges by Monday. Next week I'll taxi if the weather cooperates. Then it's time to call the DAR. Getting close......

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