6/27/2009
This morning my dad and I went out to our Chapter's breakfast, then went over the the hangar to work on the cowl. I'm really glad my dad was able to stay out at the airport with me today, because fitting the cowl by myself would've been pretty challenging with as many times as it had to be on and off the airplane, as well as all the sanding that had to be done. It was a really nice day spent with my dad...
After we had the cowl on and off 8 times, I was ready to drill the cowl to the hinge. I am still a bit tight on the right side, and have a bit more gap than I had hoped on the left side, but overall I'm really happy with it.
Here's how we clamped the front of the cowl to the back plate-
And here you can plainly see the gap I have...not terrible, but bigger than I had hoped. I may be able to add some back to this, but I'm not worried about it...the fit at the front is really good.
Then we took a couple hours to get some lunch and relax in the A/C at home...then back to the heat at the hangar to start the bottom cowl. I didn't get all that far on it as I need to do some reading on what people are doing to make this a bit easier. Seems if I follow the instructions...it will create some headache's.
I made several trims on the bottom cowl to get to this point...
And that's where I stopped for the day. I need to see if people are trimming the back first (as the instructions say to do), or if trimming the front first and fitting the rings is a better way to do it.
Here's a good shot of how much overlap there is between the top and bottom...
Still lots of trimming to do to get this anywhere near fitting properly.
4.5 hours