Today I spent time reworking the rubber seal on the fresh air box intake. The original design has a ridiculous flange that requires a slot to be cut into the rubber seal strip. What I've noticed already is that with a few iterations of bottom cowl on, bottom cowl off, the rubber has started to split quite significantly. It won't take long and it will be split right through....and that just will not do.
I removed the original rubber, then trimmed back the air box flange so that there's no need for a split to be cut into the rubber seal. I then made up an aluminium bracket that wraps around the two airbox halves to hold them together (in the absence of the flange segment). Since the rivet holes became a little enlarged when I drilled them out, then I also made up large body washers to go either side when installing the replacement rubber.
Speaking of the replacement rubber, I found a piece that is reinforced with fibre, so therefore less likely to want to rip apart.
Pictures below show my finished work. I shouldn't have needed to do this, but glad that I have.
Original design, and the rubber is already splitting
New design. Airbox flange is trimmed, plus proper reinforced rubber is used
