I prematurely put the baffles on the other day, so I pulled them off again so I could finish up the cowls. While I had the #3 cylinder baffle off, I decided to proseal around the outlet for the scat tubing that goes to the heat muff. It doesn't actually need proseal, but the screen that I have riveted in between the pieces has jagged edges that stick out. I just figured I'd cover them up with proseal so I don't stab my finger one of these days and draw (more) blood.
I've read that it's not if, but when, cork rocker cover gaskets leak. I decided to just go ahead and swap out the cork for silicone while everything is nice and clean vs waiting for an oil leak. Other than spending an hour searching for a screw I had misplaced, this was straight forward.
I tried pretending the cowl didn't exist anymore, but back to the nightmare of the Van's fiberglass. Next up is getting the lower cowl fit to the fuselage.
The biggest problem I had with the lower cowl was just the difficulty in supporting the aft edge while taking it on and off, which I did 100 times. A couple of blocks of wood on a floor jack helped a lot. I had previously trimmed off a bunch of the bottom to match the fuselage edge, but still had to chip away a little at a time to get it closer so the whole cowl could set in the right place so I could do the side hinges.
Once the bottom edge nested up against the fuselage, I measured out the sides and cut them off (just like with the top cowl, I drew a line on the fuselage 2" from the skin, then translated that line onto the cowl).
Not a huge surprise that the quality of the part means that it doesn't lay flat on the bottom. It'll improve a bit once I put in the quarter turn fasteners on the bottom, but I have a feeling I'm either going to have to be okay with a less than perfect bottom side or spend quite a bit of time messing with adding/removing fiberglass to flatten it out.
I laid out and drilled the holes for the side hinges.
The left side went well, but the right side bit me a little. I pulled the cowl tight to the fuselage using tape (leaving a small gap), then drilled the hinge. Once I pulled the tape off, the cowl sprung forward though. There is just enough give in the hinges that it can slide forward 1/16", which is enough to make a pretty unsightly gap. I'll have to see how it all works out once I connect it to the top cowl. If the relaxed state means a bigger than ideal gap, I'll have to add some fiberglass. I'm going to have to do that on the bottom anyway. My fit to the fuselage on the bottom is pretty uneven and needs some added fiberglass on the edge. Thankfully, there's really no mistake in fiberglass work! Pretty much everything can be fixed.
