Re-cover rear battery access panel

The easy access panel came in handy again and hopefully the last time I will need that for a while 😀

So – it turns out that moving the relatively small Motorcycle battery all the way to the back was

1. Great for weight .. needed ZERO ballast to fly her straight off the plan !
2. BUT hopeless when you expect around 5m of cable to still give you suitable start grunt at the front !

the solution was to re-add the original (now spare ) battery at the front – already had then TLAC mounting plate in position..

Then connect the two in parallel and bingo .. it turns like crazy …

Amazing difference yesterday (27th January) and again after a 20 min run .. leave it for a few mins to cool down then a hot start .. burst into life instantly with barely 1/2 a revolution

Bear back to allow a nice snug fit against the connector

Pick the correct size crimp for the ring connector (16)

Neat auto stamping of the crimp size confirms we used the correct connector for the 16 size crimp .. what a clever feature 

Re cover time – need to undo the rudder connection

Align the castellated nut to accept the securing split pin

As the whole turtle deck downwards was covered in one continuous sheet I clearly didn’t want to recover ALL of that just because of the rear battery access. So I cut into the Oratex just rearwards of the 45 degree sloping alloy tube support … just rear wards of the “G” reg sticker in the picture above .. allowing about a 6” overlap.

The overlap was glued along with the down bar and left to dry overnight. Next day this was ironed into position so making a secure point and leaving a rear section from that point to the rudder post open.

A new piece of material was cut and prepared and glued and fitted the following day to cover this large access panel under the starboard elevator lower fuselage. If required, this section can be removed without affecting the integrity of the rest of the side. In fact you could almost pre cover like this as it would make the single piece sheet a little less unwieldy as it would be that much shorter !