Brief Description: Complete Oil Cooler and Rear Baffle
I finished off the oil cooler box and the rear baffle.
Before riveting, I did a number of trial fits. All looked good, so I drove rivets. I was not satisfied with the cosmetics of a couple, so I drilled them out and replaced them. My skills are a little rusty - both on driving and removing rivets. I finally got something I was happy with and went to fit my masterpiece to the engine only to find that the shop-made heads of a af few rivets interfered with a tight fit to the engine. See red boxes in the second picture. I was really too tired to be working so it took me an hour and a half to remove and replace 8 rivets. Still, I am satisfied with the result: a nice looking tight cowling. Further, the oil cooler mount is quite rigid. I do plan to add a stiffener rod from the in-board side of the cooler to the centerline of the engine case.
The baffle seal straightener looked hard to rivit due to the long, narrow access so I decided to use nut plates and screws over pop-rivets. Again, skills are rusty. I needed flush rivets on the mating side. I used the pop-rivet dimpler tool on a couple before recalling that my 30" C Press was already set up with the dimpling tool. I finished about a dozen diimples in the time of pulling just two.
The end result is a nice fit. Charles had polished the baffling, but I am leaning towards painting it. The removable baffle seal will make painting easier. I do need to make that decision soon as I am about ready to "permaently" mount the baffles.
