Racking and stacking

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Getting a little frustrated with tweaking engine stuff, so in preparation for permanently installing the subpanel I started working on fitting the avionics racks.

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The GMC-307 autopilot controller was easy.

A trimmed subpanel

Wasn’t so easy to get a correctly-aligned hole in the subpanel to accommodate the GTN-650 rack (the comm/WAAS GPS/VOR/localizer/ILS does-everything box).

Aligning the radio racks together

Also had to make sure the GTN-650 and GMA-245 (that’s the audio panel) racks were correctly spaced from each other.

A lot of filing and fitting to get to this point

Took a lot of filing and fitting to get to this point. The rear rack mount “ears” are actually riveted to two 0.063″ angles that will be held in place by nutplates. I would’ve preferred just to attach them to the front side of the subpanel, but the rack attachment fasteners are too close to the subpanel to allow that.

Another bit of visual progress - the radio stack fitted

A nice bit of visual progress, don’t you think?