This is my 7th revision of the oil cooler bracing and #4-cylinder baffle bracing. The instructions had a note that said mount the oil cooler as high as you can on the baffle while allowing enough room for the eventual rubber seals on top of the baffles. The VAN’s oil cooler brace holes did not line up with the predrilled baffle-holes and the sides of the brace was too high to install any rivets. Additionally, the bracing would lead to cracks if they weren’t modified significantly. Even though I added a couple pounds of weight, my goal was to build an oil cooler brace strong enough to make sure it never cracked; or in other words…build it so you can tow the da***ed airplane from the oil cooler. I did accomplish that and I’ll show a couple reiterations of what I attempted. Where the cracks typically occur, I used 1/8” x1”x1” angle aluminum, with a 1/16th’x 1 backer plate on top of the aft side of the CB-705A baffle and FF-709 brace, (see pic #1) and held these altogether with lots of AN470AD4-9 rivets. On the top front side of the oil cooler baffle, I bent a 1x1/8” aluminum bar at 90 degrees and riveted with AN426-4-9 rivets so the flush side was on the aft side of the FF-709 (see pic #2). Finally, I reinforced the FF-709 where the oil cooler attaches on the aft side with 1/16” flat aluminum bar (see pic #3)
