I am really eager to hear my new engine fire up and run. To that end, I have been considering installing it on my currently-flying Baby Ace instead of waiting for the Thatcher to be ready. So I spent quite a bit of time making the decision betweeen another motor mount for the thatcher versus making a mount for the Baby Ace. one of the factors in the decision was the difficulty in getting precise measurements of the bolt locations on the Baby Ace firewall. With the engine in place, and all the wiring and plumbing on the firewall, it was just very difficult to have confidence in the measurements. One thing I noticed is that the centerline of the baby ace engine is not perfectly perpendicular to the firewall. Wondering whether that is intentional or just normal homebuilding variation. In any case, I became convinced that what I need to do now is make another motor mount for the Thatcher, and take more time with the details of preparation and fitup so that maybe this will be an airwothy product. One of the things I noted is that if I prepare the standoffs first and attach them to the separate sides of the assembly jig before putting the assembly jigs together, I can achieve a much more precise location of those standoffs. I decided to make the standoffs a bit longer so there is more metal to weld to for the mount tubes. The other thing I decided to do was to strip off the coatings on the washers and the standoff pieces so that the quality of the welds will be maximized. The images below show some before-and-after pictures of those pieces. It may be less than clear in the pictures, but in person there is a big difference between the washers with galvanized or cad plated surfaces, and the tubing with some mill scale and rust, compared to the bare steel I have to work with now. Tomorrow's project will be welding up these standoffs and getting them placed very precisely in the assembly jig.
