So... in addition to continued work on the wing fairings, after 14 (!) months of procrastination, I've finally been digging into and conquering the final punchlist of things that need fixing and resolving behind the panel. [No pictures here, nothing to see except panel guts hanging out again.] After spending most of a year building the panel, the prospect of tearing into it had become hugely onerous in my imagination long ago. Completion of this task has been hiding up in the "Before Engine Start" section of the task list spreadsheet all that time. None of these things affects airworthiness, but all should be fixed.

Four of five items I've now diagnosed rather easily, as I suspected I would. Two LED lights that were ON when they should be OFF due to simple wiring errors -- working too fast to finish back then, I expect. Flap and elevator trim position indicators not working -- one a loose connection, and the other a fairly straightforward calibration issue. I've also replaced the ELT remote's internal battery that was set to expire in December, but is now good for another four years, and re-routed a short piece of the static plumbing.

All that's left to figure out now is why the ARINC 429 interface box isn't talking to the AFS EFIS. And so far, it looks like this will, as I feared, require getting at the ARINC box itself, which is perhaps the most inaccessible item crammed into the very tight, panel-challenged Rebel's avionics innards. Getting to it is going to require pulling several parts of the panel apart. When I built the panel, I knew the ARINC box would be hard to get to if I ever had to. The time has come -- sooner than I expected. Not fun, but it probably won't be as bad as I've imagined it will be for the last 14 months. After all, I do have passable notes about the disassembly sequences required, which are complex.

Nevertheless, at this point, having gotten up close and personal with all the wiring again, and having conquered the other things on the punch list, I'm actually looking forward to just getting it done, whatever it takes. I really have no choice, because it's the last thing standing in the way of re-installing the rudder & brake pedals, re-installing the control column, building the control cables, and... in short, the one thing that can't be put off any longer.

Let the surgery continue. Scalpel, please.

The center panel, all lit up for the first time. The two EFIS screens are AFS-3400's with fully redundat AHRS & magnetometers, etc. Right of the left EFIS is a PSE PM4000 audio panel at the top, the trim indicators, and a TruTrak Digiflight II VSGV autopilot. The center Garmin stack includes a GNS-430W GPS/NAV/COM, an SL-40 COM2, and GTX-330 Mode S transponder. The 6 annunciator LED's on top of the left EFIS are -- left to right with increasingly dire colors -- for A/P, AUX ALT, E-bus, Master Caution (EFIS alerts), Low Voltage, and Low Oil Pressure -- the latter two are blinking, of course. Normal daylight VFR panel configuration is all lights out and all switches DOWN, except for the MASTER BAT/ALT switch, and NAV/STROBE switch just above the MASTER.

Preliminary power up tests on the center panel have gone OK, so I've updated the headline photo with a "live" one showing screens lit up and some lights illuminated. Because several coax cables and wires are still hanging out in the wings and fuselage unconnected, I'm taking it slow and won't leave fuses inline for long on those circuits that may still be "exposed."

Another landmark day. For the first time, the whole panel is in place with all the avionics! Still lots of testing to do on the center section gear, and no doubt some debugging, but it's a great day night in MOFN.

Turns out that there are so many minute adjustments needed to the multitude of cable and tubing routing, that the individual avionics instruments in the front panel have to be put in one-by-one. As the wires compress behind the units, they take on new shapes necessary for routing, chafe protection, etc., and those new routes affect the layout of the pitot static plumbing as well. Earlier I had thought I would try to make the pitot static plumbing long enough that the units could be pulled out while still attached. However, there's no longer any point in doing so -- if there ever was. Unless the entire panel can be efficiently (?) slid into and out of the center panel space as one unit, the individual units are placed one-by-one anyway. In fact, all four of the major instruments (EFIS's, audio panel and A/P) attach to the back of the finish overlay panel anyway... or to put it another way, the finish panel attaches to the front of them. Unfortunately, if the whole panel will not lift out as a unit, maintenance will require gettting underneath -- which will be tough to do with a fixed control column installation. Perhaps there's a way to re-engineer that. In the meantime, the center instruments are going into place. With all the wiring behind, they're not quite as precarious as they look in this photo.

The thornier issue has been tracking down pesky leaks in the pitot plumbing. Initially, there was an airspeed leakdown at the rate of about 1/2 knot per second! When "none" is the standard, that's definitely too much. After isolating sections all along the "common manifold" of the pitot plumbing, I determined that most if not all of the leakage is occurring at the 1/8"  pipe thread junction between male Nylo-Seal fittings and female brass fittings on the instruments. After taking steps to seal those better, the leakdown rate is now 0.13 kts./second. Still too high, but a lot  better. With a little more attention, I should be able to lock this down properly.

Putting the center panel avionics in one-by-one to test pitot/static.

The center panel, set up near its final home, with both EFIS's powered up for the first time together. They're happy this way, talking to each other at first power up. Adjust the altimeter (baro) on one, it shows on the other. More connections and testing to come before this section can be slid back into place, but... a picture worth several thousand words.

Before the arrival of the ice age, there was quite a bit of this going on. The more times you forget to put an essential part or tool within reach (and that's a lot of times) the better it is for the abs.

Quite a bit of this work.