P-51C Engine Ignition Harness continued

I finished installing the ignition wires on the other side of the top of the engine in the same manner as discussed in the previous blog. Here's what it looks like.

For the ignition wires on the sides of the cylinders, I had to use a different approach. I cut short lengths of the metallic string and glued a short piece of .020" plastic rod to the end and painted the rod silver.

To prepare the harness for attachment to the engine, I cut a very thin strip of .010" thick and formed them into J-shaped clips that were glued in the proper position on the harness.

I painted the new pieces silver and glued the harness in place. With the wires I cut the plastic rod a little shorter so it matched a scale length and test fit and cut the string so it was the correct length to reach from the harness to the spark plugs, which are nothing more that .020" plastic rod glued in the appropriate locations on the cylinders.

 

I glued the end of the string to the harness first and then glued the rod to the spark plugs at a slight angle. Use a picture of the actual Merlin as reference to get this right. Don't run the wires straight to the spark plugs. The real wires had a little bend and slack in them. The wires on the Merlin were attached to the plugs with spherical joints which is easy to create using some thick adhesive. I tried using super glue first, but it shrinks when it sets so it didn't create the right shape. But I had some JB Weld laying around, so I mixed some up and dabbed a little blob in the joint and it formed the perfect shape. 

After a little silver paint, the ignition wires look extremely similar to the ones on the real Mustang.

The first side of the engine is done.