Oil Cooler Mounting

Rose helped me get the corner gussets of the front baffles dimpled today, so I was then able to rivet them in.  I couldn't easily get the aft couple of rivets done, so I left those out for the time being.  The side baffle will eventually be trimmed quite a bit to leave room for fiberglass ramps that get glassed into the top cowl.  When I trim them, I should be able to get those last few rivets using the squeezer.

Back at the oil cooler doubler - I got all of the holes laid out and match drilled to the baffle.

I had to take some creative license to get the support box in front of the cooler to fit.  I chopped off pieces and added pieces until it did the job it's supposed to do.

I needed more real estate on the aft portion of the support box in order to be able to capture the rivets going into the oil cooler doubler, so I added a large piece of angle to it.

The support box not only stiffens the area for the oil cooler, but it also creates a front face for the baffle material to be riveted to.  I trimmed the front edge of the box so that it would match the cowl contour.  Riveting these back baffles and parts together was quite the chore.  I ended up having to pull it all out to rivet it on the bench.  Even doing that was easier said than done.

Here you can see the oil cooler and the shutter temporarily in place.  I really wanted to have the shutter lever activate in the opposite direction than it is in this configuration (so pulling the control knob out would close the shutter), but there just wasn't a great way to make it work.  So as it is now, pulling the control knob out at the panel opens the shutter, which will be the most frequent position.  That means I'm going to have to redo my label on the panel (it currently says pull is closed), but it's easier to redo the label than figure out some convoluted method to reversing the lever direction.

I need to order some longer bolts to mount the cooler.  With the thickness of the shutter and my large angle corner modification, the provided bolts are too short.  The bolts go through both fore and aft flanges on the cooler with a spacer in between.  The small bolts in the picture are just temporarily holding it on.

Here's what the shutter looks like when closed.  I'll also be making a support arm that will go from one of the inside bolts to the top rocker cover screw.  The baffles are known to crack over time with the weight of the cooler.  The solution is to beef up the corner, which I've done, then also create some sort of a bracket that essentially makes a triangle and keeps the cooler from vibrating.

And the shutter open.  I did waffle a little on putting the shutter in because the design of it means that even in the open position it's still blocking a decent amount of air.  Most people say it's a non-issue though.  Some people report a 5 degree rise in temps after putting the shutter in, but still within limits.

This area had a ton of modifications, including making a number of the parts from scratch.  Straying from the plans definitely turned an hour job into 8, but I'm happy with the outcome.  The last pieces for the cooler will be mounting it permanently once I get the bolts, and  then connecting the oil lines.

My next step on the FWF is to connect my new oil breather line to the exhaust (yet another modification based on feedback), as well as route the fuel pump drip line.