After a year of watching, I finally found a good deal on an SD-8 standby alternator. Today Danny and I installed it on the engine. The last of the four nuts was a little bit tricky to get to, but we figured it out after a few minutes.
This is the spot where the vacuum pump would usually go.
I took a few pictures of how everything sits. I don’t see any clearance problems.
Top view of the SD-8
... and From the right...
Since Don Bandy was in town and the timing was good, we decided to put the wings back on. Richard put the wings on once, but we haven’t had them on until now. A few of our local friends also came over to help, including Danny, Wade, and Kevin. I built a stand to put under the first wing to keep the fuselage from tipping over. Jim Woolf said that it wouldn’t tip over even without the stand, and he was right! That’s a bet I would have lost.
Wade evaluates our progress
Here's the left wing just before we put it on.
Since Richard already did the rigging and drilling, this installation was just a matter of lifting the wings and putting in the bolts. Even still, it takes a few folks to do it well.
We set the wing on a padded table while we got Danny in place to put the bolts in.
The person at the wingtip, in this case Don, had the most important role. In the worst of circumstances we probably could have done the job with just 3- one person at the root, one at the tip, and one to put in bolts. Having more made it much easier though.
Maybe it was Wade at the tip on this side!
There's Don at the tip, while Danny and Kevin and I put the strut into place.
I used a tapered, bullet-shaped bolt to clear the way for the airworthy version.
Left to right: Wade Kennedy, Kevin Ball, Tabitha Yates, Don Bandy, Bryna Riley, Chris Frye, Danny Hughes, and me.
With all of that done we went out to the Buffalo Wild Wings and ate a bunch of chicken wings. What fun!