To screen or not to screen?

That is the question. It is now evident that I was rather rash going off and ordering plastic to make a new screen for 28AAD. I wanted to place MYRO’s old screen into position on 28AAD to see how it fitted and how good it would be to use as a pattern. The following pictures speak for themselves.

Now a couple of views of the interior.

It seems that MYRO’s old screen is not only a perfect fit but it’s also still in very good condition, quite good enough in fact to have been used on 28AAD. My main worry concerned the holes that had been cut in it for MYRO’s old electric fuel pump that I’m not going to install in 28AAD.

But it seems that I need hardly have worried. The largest one isn’t visible at all and there’s just one small bolt hole that is shown in the pic below.

I think that I could have just left it, or just put a small rubber grommet in it. It would hardly have been worth worrying about. So as it’s in place, I’m now left with the question of whether to leave the old screen in or not? If I could think of another use for the new plastic that’s about to be delivered, I think I would. Hmmmm…

Now that I’m waiting for the new screen plastic to arrive, surprisingly enough there’s not much else that I can do. There was one thing though, namely to replace the plate on the tail that holds the radio antenna.

The one that was on there was not the correct one, comprising just a large sheet of aluminium (obviously intended as a ground plane, although I have no idea if it worked or not) mounted under the horizontal stabiliser on top of the main tube.

It was clearly pretty useless as it was not strong enough and was badly bent. The proper one is much stronger and whereas the old one was held on only by ordinary lock nuts that were also intended to secure the front of the horizontal stabiliser, the real one uses bolts with security rings in. And that’s what I put on, as the following two shots show.

The next task will be mounting the engine, because even with it on, I can still do the work needed to install the new screen and panel and it will also really move the project on. Here it is next to 28AAD on its trestle ready to be lifted up onto its mountings.

It was too heavy for me to do it by myself and Wim has kindly agreed to give me a hand tomorrow morning. There’s still quite a bit to be done to finish 28AAD’s rebuild, but in a way, having the engine installed and all connected up will mean that the end of the project is beginning to come into sight 😉