Brief Description: Installing fresh air ventilators and CAT ducting
I have heard from many builders that the VAN's Fresh Air Ventilators are poor quality and leak cold air (which my wife would be very unhappy with). So I purchased machined aluminum Whisperflo SV ventilators. I used RTV and blind rivets to mount the fiberglass vent to the fuselage. I did the prep-work of drilling/dimpling/ and finally blind rivet with small backer-plates so the rivets woudn't crack the fiberglass. Installing the CAT tubing to the whisperflow adapters was a little more challenging than I expected. The vent inlet and the SV Inlet adapters are tapered and clamps have a tendency to slide off them over time. The manufacturer recommended using safety wire through the clamp and the vent adapters or use bonding RTV. I chose the RTV and clamp process...it was very messy, though. I also drilled the 2 1/8" holes through the secondary panel and RTV'd some split plastic conduit around the circumference of the hole to protect the CAT tubing...but that's when it got real interesting...(see next construction log).