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Tonight, I applied the third coat of Smooth Prime to the snorkel and set it aside to dry. I then worked on finishing the baffle seals. I completed the patterns but ran out of black McFarland seal material around the front crank area. The next logical step would be to rivet the seals to the baffles. However, before doing that, I would like to trial-fit the top cowl to see if I need to make adjustments to the seals before riveting them in place.

When I installed the cowl, I encountered two issues. First, the mixture arm contacts the bottom cowl at full rich, so I need to work on that relief further. I hope to sand down some of the relief area, but I will likely have to thicken the outside surface of the cowl slightly. This way, I can remove more of the inside surface of the relief, giving the arm more space to move. My main goal is to feather in the additional thickness without creating a bubble on the outside of the lower cowl.

The second issue is that I had to remove the two forward baffle seals to install the cowl because they were too stiff and too long where the air ramps are, so some adjustments are necessary there. On a positive note, I’m excited that the side cowl pins fit much more easily now that the tubing is installed. This is the first time I've put the side pins in, and they went in smoothly. A "stern" push was all that was needed; I didn't even require the drill to get them installed. I was able to push them in by hand. I ended up installing all four cowl pins, and the top ones went in easily.

I started this project on October 28, 2012, and as of today, I am entering the 13th year of the build, hopefully the last year.

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