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A couple more dumb questions

C

Charles in SC

Well Known Member
Today I drilled the firewall holes out for my motor mt and I am looking at fitting the front gear ( mine is a tail wheel) It looks like I will have to grind out a couple of notches in the bottom corners of the firewall flange for the gear legs to clear. Is that correct? The plans do not say anything about this and I want to be sure I have not missed something.

I am also ready to start marking and cutting the canopy, as far as the marking goes is a sharpie the thing to use and if so what is the best way to clean the marks off when finished? I do not think I should use the solvents that I use on the aluminum.
Thanks for any input!
 
Charles in SC said:
Today I drilled the firewall holes out for my motor mt and I am looking at fitting the front gear ( mine is a tail wheel) It looks like I will have to grind out a couple of notches in the bottom corners of the firewall flange for the gear legs to clear. Is that correct? The plans do not say anything about this and I want to be sure I have not missed something.

That is correct


I am also ready to start marking and cutting the canopy, as far as the marking goes is a sharpie the thing to use and if so what is the best way to clean the marks off when finished? I do not think I should use the solvents that I use on the aluminum.
Thanks for any input!
Click to expand...

Whoa - stay clear of solvents and only mark on the clear protective plastic or blue low tack masking tape applied to the surface of the canopy to protect it. The canopy should remain covered for as long as possible.
 
Yes, you will have to cut a couple of fairly significant notches in the firewall flange and side/bottom skins for the landing gear. Don't skimp and be sure to allow plenty of room for the legs. The cutouts will end up covered with a fiberglass fairing in the end.

For the canopy, keep as much of the protective plastic on the canopy as possible. Only cut the protective coating where necessary to make cuts and seal all of the edges with blue low tack masking tape as jsharkey stated. You can either mark the cut lines with a sharpie on the blue tape or on the canopy plexiglass directly. You can clean marks off the canopy with mineral spirits, which will not affect the plexi in any way. At least that is my experience. Do not get any other solvents (such as MEK, acetone, even locktite) on the canopy.
 
Thanks for the quick answers. The protective plastic on mine is very bubbly and will be hard to mark on unless I can even it out some. I wondered about redoing it with some plastic wrap stuff that I have .
 
No need to redo it. Mine was "bubbly" too. Just pull up and cut the protective plastic where you need to make cuts, seal ALL edges (even the ones that overlap internally) with blue masking tape (or better yet, electrical tape) and cut away.
 
sharpie and denatured alcohol

i used a sharpie extensively in the fitting and fine tuning process to mark the canopy and cleaned it up with denatured alcohol on a fresh lint free rag without issue... there have been many reported issues with letting mek soak the edges (trapped under the sheet metal) as a source of crazing...
 
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