cowling dance

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:23 pm

put it on, take it off, put it on, mark it, take it off, cut it, put it on.........oh you get the idea.

Here it is after 15 or is it 150 cycles.

Long ways to go and no more work this week.....Snowboarding tomorrow and Son leaves for Afghanistan on Saturday. See ya next year.

captain_john · Post by **captain_john** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:27 pm

Brian that looks like a great start!

Say, pinch the ends of those fuel lines to keep debris out!

Keep it up!

CJ

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 6:38 pm

captain_john wrote:Brian that looks like a great start!

Say, pinch the ends of those fuel lines to keep debris out!

Keep it up!

CJ

good idea, I was planning on disconnecting some of the fittings and blowing them out with air.

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:01 am

Oh the dance...the summer of '09 will be remembered as "Cowling summer" for me...phew! Hang on! It's a ride!

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:23 am

cjensen wrote:......the summer of '09 will be remembered as "Cowling summer" for me...phew!

YIKES! I don't plan on having a whole season devoted to it. My goal is done with the cowl in January. Panel & Wiring done in Feb.

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:25 am

Yeah, I probably should clarify that is cowling, plenum, FAB...

and I'm still not done...

Post by **Spike** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 9:36 am

Seems like that Sam James cowl is an awful lot of work. Hope the stock isn't that bad.

Spike

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 2:00 pm

The cowl itself can't be any harder either way...it's the rings/plenum set up that adds to it. That part has to be more time consuming than standard baffling. The FAB would be in the same boat as stock...not any harder, just different. My two cents thoughts...

Bob Barrett · Post by **Bob Barrett** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 5:47 pm

Either one is a pain!!!!!!!!!! In reality you can probably get by cutting an eighth of an inch off and be realtively safe. The standard cowl suggests a minimun of 3/8" to 1/2" clearing between the baffel and the cowl. I have no idea how many times I had mine off and on but 150 could be on the low end

Wicked Stick · Post by **Wicked Stick** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 10:00 pm

When you get close, say within an inch of final trimming, do what I did.
Stole an idea on using paper clips to create a final trim pattern.

Worked great and saved me at least another 10 or 20 "on-offs"

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Thu Dec 31, 2009 8:24 pm

no paper clips, plenum for me. It's got it's own set of issues

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Fri Jan 01, 2010 4:07 pm

hydroguy2 wrote:no paper clips, plenum for me. It's got it's own set of issues

Issues...yeah...

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 6:40 pm

I'm putting the horizontal hinge attaching upper and lower cowls. But wondering about the FWD end as it curves into the opening on the James cowl.

The fiberglass is much thicker in that area, so the hinge wants to kind of kink for the last inch or so. Does the hinge material need to go this far? if so, should I just shim it to smooth the transition?

I'll try to snap a pic when I head back out to the shop.

EDIT: to add pic.

Here's the area I was wondering about. How far does the hinge piece have to extend forward? The area in the circle has a step change in thickness.

Wicked Stick · Post by **Wicked Stick** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:51 pm

I would think you could get rid of at least 2 or 3 hinge pieces.. It doesn't have to go all the way out to the ends. At least not on a Van's cowl.

Also, I decided to pull the pins in and out from inside the fuselage so no external pins will be sticking out the nose for me.

cjensen · Post by **cjensen** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 10:59 pm

Yeah, get rid of two or three. I think I have a good inch and a half aft of the inlet ring before hinge starts. I'll look in the morning for ya.

I also did hinge pins from the cabin...

Post by **bullojm1** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:19 pm

Brian-

Yeah, you can definitely trim them back 2-3 eyelets worth. Here is a pic of my cowl from the inside:

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:22 pm

Perfect, thanks guys and thanks for the pic Mike. (I like pics, it really helps me visualize stuff)

I'm doing the cabin pins also. And next question is, what pin material do you guys have. Vans says discard the AL pins and use SS ones. My hinges came from ACS and have steel pins already. Should I swap them for something else?

Post by **bullojm1** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:32 pm

Brian-

If I recall correctly, the SS pin van's provides is a smaller diameter for the top hinge (.092" or something along those lines). It is smaller than the eyelet to assist the pin insertion through the curvature of the top of the cowl.

hydroguy2 · Post by **hydroguy2** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:37 pm

I didn't get any hinges from Vans, as I deleted my cowl from the finish kit. My hinges and pins came from ACS and I think the pins are .092 or so and are magnetic so I assume steel....(ok they're not magnetic, but a magnet will stick to them)

Post by **bullojm1** » Thu Jan 07, 2010 5:48 am

The hinges from Van's for the top of the cowl are different than the typical AN257 piano hinges used everywhere else on the project. From Van's website:

The HINGE PIANO typically uses the SSP-120 pin. This hinge also uses the undersize SSP-090 pin for the radius around the top of the firewall/cowling interface.

And the page link: http://vansaircraft.com/cgi-bin/catalog ... duct=hinge