Canopy Prep & Engine Control Cable Brackets

Van's throttle and mixture cable brackets won't work with the Airflow Performance throttle body on my engine.  I found out that as of 6 months ago, Van's is actually now selling all engines with this same throttle body, so I emailed them to ask if they have a new bracket available now.  Unfortunately, they said their engineers haven't had a chance to design a new bracket yet.  I was hoping to get away with a cheaper solution, but in the end had to go to Airflow Performance and buy their brackets.  They are not just gold anodized, but must actually be made of solid gold given the price!  The kit comes with a new plate that sets on top of the throttle body, then two brackets that bolt on the aft sides.  The cable brackets themselves will be drilled to the large aluminum sides.  I put the whole setup onto the engine to see where things fit - it's going to be really tight with the new elastomer landing gear.  That takes up a lot of room that I don't think this bracket was originally designed for.  I'll be able to make it work, but it's going to take some thinking.  I don't have the cables in-hand yet, because I was waiting to order them until I knew what the routing through the firewall will be.  It's a chicken or the egg problem.  Like most things these days, I set it aside and moved on to something else so I could mull over it for a bit.

Back to the canopy - I used the plexi edge scraper to smooth out the edges that I cut the other day then put the canopy on for the 300th time to check the fit.  I think it's where it needs to be in terms of shape.  The next step is to try to mark out where the Sika primer needs to be laid down on the canopy.  It's easier said than done to get inside to mark where the sides meet the frame (so I know where to tape off a line for the primer).  Instead I drew a line on the outside of the canopy at the level of the side skin.  For the aft edge, I went with a measurement taken off the roll bar.  For the front, I'm going to put about an inch high strip of the primer.  The adhesive itself will probably only go up 1/4" or so, but the primer is black and by extending it up an inch it'll help hide the fiberglass fairing that will be on the outside.

Once I had the lines laid out, I pulled the canopy back off and used electrical tape to mask off the areas.  When I'm ready to actually use the adhesive, I'll scuff and prep the edges with the Sika activator, put the primer on and cross my fingers I got it all laid out correctly.

When the canopy was on, I had drawn a line indicating where the front edge was on the glare shield.  I taped off an area about 5/8" wide and sanded off the primer and paint to get down to bare aluminum.  I'll cheat the bead of Sika towards the rear line.  Once the canopy is in place I will put additional adhesive down on the front side to fill in the gap created by where the 90 degree edge of the plexi sets on the skin.  That front area doesn't have to be exact.  It'll all ultimately be covered with fiberglass.