Finished drilling cowl
Since the exhaust was installed, I might as well install the cabin heat muff as well. It took a few minutes to figure it out, but it looks like a good system. I deburred the edges of everything a little bit first. I don’t have the hose clamps installed yet, because I’m not sure if I’ll need to adjust the position later.
I decided I might as well make some more progress on the cowl. I sanded the horizontal seams, checking the progress frequently, until they were right where I wanted them. I then finished drilling the top hinge to the cowl. The instructions have you drill just a couple of spots to start with, but I didn’t want it to move around any more. Of course, with the undersized pin installed, the thing moves around anyway.
Next, I positioned the hinge on the lower half of the cowl and laid out holes 1″ apart. I drilled all of those.
I then used the pin to attach the top half of the hinge. I re-installed the top half of the cowl and taped it exactly, exactly where I wanted it. Drill time. All of the hinges are now drilled to the fuselage and cowl.
I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. With the blocking and duct tape removed, the cowl is right where I want it. It seems strange to obsess over the position so much when the cowl has some free play in it. I can move it around about 1/32″ due to the small top cowl pin and the slight slop in the hinges. It still looks good. I’m glad I didn’t make a paint gap yet along the top. With the blocking removed, the gap ended up being perfect without needing to sand any more.
Today ended up being much longer than I expected, but I won’t spend much time on the project tomorrow as we’re going skiing. And I’ll watch a bit of the Hawks.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:59 am
Dave,
You’ll want to put a clamp around the exhaust pipe at the lower end of the heat muff to keep it from sliding down. Even with the two end clamps on the heat muff, that doesn’t hold it tight to the exhaust.