I started today off by making up a couple brackets for attaching the bottom edge of the bottom cowl to the firewall. The standard Vans design is to have a hinge pin here, however I'd prefer to just fit a few screws instead. I'm not at all fussed about a dead straight flush finish in this part of the build, as it won't be seen by anyone anyway, and I just think that undoing six screws will be far easier than trying to get two hinge pins in and out. Hope I'm right!
Anyway, I made up a couple flange pieces, plus some 0.020" spacers, cleaned and alodined them, then rivetted them in place.....one on each side. When I then test fitted my bottom engine cowl I realised my mistake. I had assumed the cowl-firewall intersection was a straight line, but it's not. The lower surface of the bottom cowl actually angles up from the firewall ....... and I didn't add any angle to my brackets. This meant the bottom edge of the bottom cowl would not sit flat against the fuselage.
Nothing else for it but to drill out my rivets and try to get a bend into the brackets. Unfortunately the little bending brake that I've got is nowhere good enough to bend 0.063" aluminium. I need to take the pieces to my workplace where there's a hydraulic bender. I'll finish these off later.
Fabricating the brackets to hold the bottom engine cowl to the firewall
One of the brackets installed
With both cvowl halves temporarily fitted. Lookin' good
