Rear Battery Rack Installation

May 8, 2011 - Another week has come and gone and forward progress continues. This week I successfully completed the following tasks:

1 - Restored the fresh air blower box
2 - Installed the windshield wiper
3 - Installed the Rear Battery Box

Since I was getting close to putting in the battery racks and boxes, I decided it was time to button up the front firewall area and reinstall the windshield wiper and fresh air box. Firstly, I had to refurbish the fresh air blower box. I ordered the fresh air blower seal kit from 914rubber.com for about $18. It contained seals for the blower, blower valves, and blower box to cowl. Here's a pic of the fresh air blower box with the blower seal installed:



Here's one of the refursbished blower valves:



Here's a shot of the top of the blower box with the new seal, this mates with bottom of the fresh air cowl:



And here's a shot of the screen wrapped in screen material ready to installed:



I can't install the fresh air blower until the windshield wiper is installed and then reinstall the climate control assembly. When I took out the windshield wiper, I didn't know about the rack mount in the back and broke it. Even though the rack mount is NLA, I was able to find a suitable replacement from Aircraft Spruce for about $6.



Unfortunately, the new rack mount is 5/16" but the old one was 6mm, so I had to take apart the windshield wiper assembly and grind off the old nut that was brazed to the assembly. I took a shot of the assembly to remember hwo it went back together.



I was then able to reinstall the windshield wiper assembly with new rack mount:



Next up, tackling the rear battery rack mount. What a major PITA that was. Once I was able to get the rack mount properly fitted, I was able to drill the holes for the mount plates. Here's a shot of the passenger compartment mount plates installed:



Had to cut and grind a slot into the top of the controller heat sink to allow the rack to set correctly on the passenger side:



The driver side mounting plate was a little more difficult to negotiate:



Here's a passenger side shot of the rack properly installed and ready to take the battery box:





And a driver side shot of the rack installed:





And finally a shot of one side of the battery box installed with five batteries: