Painting Cowl with Skybolt?

If you have painted your cowling and have skybolt fasteners installed did you remove the fasteners prior to prime and paint? They are pretty loose when not engaged and am a little concerned the paint underneath will wear quickly during replace and removal of the cowl. What say you?

You do want to remove them before priming and painting. When you reinstall them they should not be loose. If they are there is something wrong. When you slid the snap ring on they should be pretty tight. If they are sliding around then the cowling is not thick enough or you have the incorrect length on the female portion. At least that was my experience.

hmmm...they are the size zero which I believe are the shortest. I might put two snap rings on effectively like adding a washer.

Yep, take them off for painting. They should end up reasonably tight with the snap rings. You might have to purchase new rings if the old ones lack spring (but all of mine were ok being reinstalled a couple of times.

greg

I spoke with the Skybolt folks and they assured me that some axial play is expected and normal. I envision losing half my snap rings as they spring off my tools as I try to remove them so I might purchase a bunch of the slightly thicker ones (the standard are .049 while the thicker are .057).

Thanks!

Ken