Brief Description: Position Upper Cowl Referencing Spinner Bulkhead
Next I slid the upper cowl onto the fuselage and used the spinner bulhead to position it properly. I had to remove the cleco's from the firewall flanges holding the top skin and piano hinges on since the aft edge of the cowl hasn't been trimmed yet and hit up against these.
I used two bar clamps on either side of the spinner bulkhead and kept moving these around until I had the cowl where I wanted it. The cowl is just resting on the clamps. I positioned the cowl to be 1/16" lower than bulkhead to allow for engine sag over time from the rubber Lord mounts. I also positioned the cowl to be 1/8" behind the bulkhead at the top and 1/4" from the bottom edges that were sitting on the bar clamps. I also tried to center the cowl as best I could around the bulkhead, with the same amount of fiberglass showing on each side. The trick was drilling a couple of securing holes on the aft edge of the cowl into the firewall flanges without knocking everything out of alignment.
Foward end of upper cowl resting on clamps fastened to spinner bulkhead
Upper cowl positioned and temporarily drilled / clecoed to firewall in two places
