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RV-3B Dave's in Colorado

It's a fairly trivial bit of work, but I put the cowl back on for some checks and adjustments yesterday. I identified some areas to work. Like I said, trivial -- but the first bit of work on it since they hacked into me. And the week included two of the regular activities that I'd previously had. So I call it "progress."

However, it's quite clear that there's more recovery ahead, at a minimum.

Dave
 
Sorry, yet another post with no photos.

Here’s what’s been going in. As I continue to recover, my recovery progress is steady but slow, slower than I like. Today happened to be an unusually good day in many respects and I was able to work on this kit plane well over three hours. First time in a long time for that.

If I’m fortunate enough to get more such days, I’ll take ‘em.

Since the cowl tool had been sent back (it centered on the crankshaft and held Wirejock’s centering disk; I thought I was done with it), I used the centering disk as an alignment reference and found that the cowl was roughly a quarter inch off center laterally and about 3/32” off center vertically. At this stage, the top and bottom cowl are held together on the sides with screws and nutplates. The nutplates are installed but I’m using clecos instead of the screws.

The aft edge is quarter-turn fasteners and nutplates, with the quarter-turn fasteners along the top and lower sides and the nutplates along the cheeks. I had been using clecos at both the nutplates and the quarter-turn fastener locations for convenience.

The turtledeck between the panel and the firewall, which is removable on an RV-3B, was off.

The first step was to put the turtledeck back on. Done. I didn’t expect that this would affect the cowl position but I wanted to be certain. And sure enough it didn’t.

Then I unclecoed the entire aft edge. This left the top and bottom sides attached to each other, giving me a cowl which was floating on the firewall and baffle seals. I clecoed the front of it to the alignment disk and found that indeed, I could move the centering of the cowl around as I pleased. I checked with my mentor and he’s returning the cowl tool. That will let me nail down the cowl position, hopefully better this time, and redrill the firewall attachment holes.

At least conceptually, this problem is solved.

While I was at it, I tweaked the gaps between the top and bottom cowl halves a bit and filled one or two holes. Small stuff.

Dave
 
Here I am back again.

The cowl tool is working out just fine but this 2-day job is dragging; I haven't been working on the airplane. I got the cowl assembled and back on and found that the aft edge of the lower cowl needed trimming. I spent much of today doing that: mark where needed, remove, trim, install, repeat. But getting fairly close.

I've been using a bungee across the top of the engine mounts and down to two clips on the lower cowl to help support it while doing the removal/reinstallation. Here's a very poor photo, showing the bungee, the fitting and the ignition leads which are presently unconnected.

Cowl Support.JPG


Here's a shot of the left-hand fitting:

Cowl Support Fitting.JPG


On a different topic, my mentor called today with some comments about the exhaust hanger. The Vetterman exhaust came with the standard hose and tube arrangement, and the instructions said to attach it to this bar (the blue bar between the exhaust pipes). We discussed different approaches. Since I'd like to prevent vertical motion of the exhaust at this point, I'll have to build something with that in mind. It's still somewhat off in the future. I'll decide then if I want to connect it to the airframe of the engine; both appear possible, although hoses might get in the way.

Exhaust Hanger Brace S.jpeg


Dave
 
Here I am back again.

The cowl tool is working out just fine but this 2-day job is dragging; I haven't been working on the airplane. I got the cowl assembled and back on and found that the aft edge of the lower cowl needed trimming. I spent much of today doing that: mark where needed, remove, trim, install, repeat. But getting fairly close.

I've been using a bungee across the top of the engine mounts and down to two clips on the lower cowl to help support it while doing the removal/reinstallation. Here's a very poor photo, showing the bungee, the fitting and the ignition leads which are presently unconnected.

View attachment 58712

Here's a shot of the left-hand fitting:

View attachment 58713

On a different topic, my mentor called today with some comments about the exhaust hanger. The Vetterman exhaust came with the standard hose and tube arrangement, and the instructions said to attach it to this bar (the blue bar between the exhaust pipes). We discussed different approaches. Since I'd like to prevent vertical motion of the exhaust at this point, I'll have to build something with that in mind. It's still somewhat off in the future. I'll decide then if I want to connect it to the airframe of the engine; both appear possible, although hoses might get in the way.

View attachment 58714

Dave
It's good to see you back and pushing on with the build!

The bar on the exhaust looks like it would need to be beefed up or replaced with an angle if the intent is perhaps to suspend it from in between the tail pipes?
 
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