After I had re-read the Bearhawk assembly manual I realized I had incorrectly located the U-channels for the engine cowling. I had trimmed all U-channels to fit between the firewall flange and the nose bowl flange but my additional research revealed I needed to overlap both flanges with the U-channel.
I made 4 new channels along with filler strips because I did not want any stress placed on the cowling as it drops from the outside surface of the aircraft onto the new channel. These filler strips were fabricated from aluminum straps of 0.63" for the top cowl and 0.120" for the lower cowls.The upper cowling did not need as thick of a filler as the hinge was already in place and it measured 0.50".
I could have used 0.063" fillers on the lower cowling only (none on the top) except I planned to use anti-chafe tape all around the boot cowl flange and it is quite thick. I wanted to make sure I had a good gap that would not rip the chafe tape each time I installed the cowling sections.
