I started the cowl fitting in earnest today; one of the first things is to rivet on the hinges that will hold the cowl onto the plane. This arrangement is genius in that it is cheap, light and gives the plane a nice smooth look with no screws. After going over the plans I realized I did not have DWG reference in the DWG 48 which deals with the hinge layout. I call Van’s and they sent me DWG 21 via email. DWG 21 deals with the longeron bending as well as the firewall hinge layout. I looked at my plans and realized that DWG 60 has nearly the same information. The dimensions for the upper hinge pieces are different that DWG 21. They were different by like a half inch in total which is not really a bid deal.
I chose to install the firewall side of the hinge in one long piece instead of the two called out in the plans. I want to give the floppy firewall some support so I will rivet the firewall side as one piece and cut the cowling side.
To get started I had to drill out 6 AN426 rivets that were set at the factory to hold the firewall at the bottom. I am not sure why they did not use pop rivets like the sides (these are much easier to drill out) but I drilled all the temporary pop rivets along with the regular ones on the bottom.
I drilled and machine countersunk the hinge and called it a day. I did test fit with the stock hinge pin, it is a little tough, and there is a stainless pin that is a bit smaller that will get used for the final install, the stock pins that come with the hinge will be thrown out.
Test fit
I will get to these pins through the oil filler door.
