April 12, 2008 - More Lower Cowl

The instructions and drawings call for .020 spacer strips between the backing strips and firewall flange.  This is so the cowl will be even with the fuselage skin.  I spent a couple of hours making spacer strips.  The usual deal:  cut to size, edge-smooth, match-drill, deburr and ...
 
dimple. 
 
Match-drilling the spacer strip.
 
All done.
 
OK, back to the cowl.  The problem is that the top cowl does not fit well over the lower cowl lip.  The instructions said little more than "git er done" and even my favorite builder's websites weren't much help.  
 
An hour or two of sanding and fitting got me nowhere.  I finally concluded that the lips had to go, with the exception of the inside center nostril.  So I trimmed the lower cowl as shown.  Three nutplates each will go on the inside center nostril lips.  
 

I also cut the lip off the sides. 

 

 
Removing the lips made all the difference.  The fit between the top and bottom cowls improved dramatically.   Finally, I was making some progress. 
 
See how much nicer the front end fits? 
 
P10
Yeah, you gotta like that!
 
Gear cutouts came out nice.
 
The exhaust area looking good. 
 
Still a lot of trimming to be done:  the bottom, side and aft edges so that they butt up against with the fuselage skin. 
   
Previous
Home
Next