Brief Description: The cowling chronicle continues - 03
I wasn't satisfied with the way the canopy fit so today I started over with a different plan. First I worked on cleaning up the front cut line on the top canopy. Using a power sander I slowly removed material at the outside edge of the air inlets until they almost fit with the lower cowling. I know this will probably shift some when I mount the lower cowling on the aircraft so I left them a little long.
I wanted the upper cowling to sit at the proper distance from the spinner aft bulkhead. I knew the lower edge ran away from the bulkhead but I wasn't sure exactly how much. My solution was to purchase a 12" circular 23/32" peice of plywood. I drilled four mounting holes for 3/8" 1 1/4" bolts (the silver bolt heads in image two) and used washers between the bulkhead and the plywood to get the total width I wanted. As I had already made four PVC spacers to simulate the prop hub I drilled four 1 1/8" holes in the plywood so the PVC could nest inside and still maintain the 2 1/8" spacing for the hub. After mounting this on the prop flange I was able to position the upper cowling and maintain 5/16" separation between the bulkhead and the cowling. I could also measure the increased separation at the bottom. Some of this will be fixed when I cut the back edge.
This also allowed me to see the cowling was sitting slightly lower on the left than on the right even though it was where I wanted it at the spinner. I was able to massage it into place and draw a new cut line. The cowling will now be slightly longer on the left side as you can see in image three.
