The spark plug wire for the front left cylinder (2) is long enough that it needs some support to keep it from flopping around. I made a little standoff for an adel clamp and attached it to the clamp that supports the fuel line.
The cowl work is never going to end. I had a few minutes before I had to leave, so I mixed up some epoxy/flox, scarfed the horizontal fuselage edge of the the top cowl and put the epoxy on to lengthen the edge. To keep it a little cleaner on the top side, I clecoed on some backer material (thin aluminum and a cereal box with packing tape to make the epoxy release easier) before spreading the epoxy on. Unfortunately, it turns out I didn't extend the edge far enough towards the center, so I'm going to have to do it again.
The other day I had cut a notch in the bottom corner of the lower cowl so I could pull it into a better shape to match the fuselage. I pulled the cured cowl off to see how it looked. Not too bad. The point of the fiberglass inside was mostly to just hold it in position so I could fill it from the outside.
I used the Dremel to grind in a scarf for the epoxy/flox.
Once it was dry I sanded to smooth it out to a decent curve. I don't need to get it perfect, since I'll be using either micro or filler to smooth things out before paint anyway.
I put the cowl back in place and sanded the both corners to match up with the fuselage.
The nose bowl flanges on the lower cowl that the top cowl nests over are an absolute nightmare to get right. At first I thought I'd spread a bunch of flox on them and then resand them. After messing with them for a while, I decided to take the route that a lot of people do and just cut them off! Once I have the cowls fitting nicely, I'll rivet on a piece of aluminum to act as the flange instead. The aluminum will be much easier to fit the top cowl to.
I put the cowls back on to test the fit. This is where I discovered that I still need to extend the top edge about 1/32"+. I also discovered that I did too much sanding on the right side of the lower cowl where I already extended the edge! Ughh! I am positive I sanded it to the right length when I had put the lower cowl on and off, but when I put everything back together, it's too short. I guess that's the good thing about fiberglass - I can just keep fixing my stupid mistakes.
More sanding on the front end too. It's still extremely rough, but it's slowly starting to match up. I will be very happy once I get these cowls finished! Admittedly, it's taking a while because I only have the energy to do small portions at a time. Van's always says they don't update parts like this because they want to keep costs low. I think I speak for every builder when I say I would have gladly paid extra for better fitting parts!
