How do you guys terminate your cowl hinge pins?

[John Courte]

On the upper cowl hinges, where you use a .090 pin, what do you do with the end of the pin that sticks out from the insertion point near the top center of the firewall? Is it as simple as bending it into a right angle and letting it ride?

Or is there something I need to do to secure the hinge pin end, similar to what you have to do for the flap hinges?

The plans don't say anything about this, except on the cowl side hinges.

cheers,
-John

 

[jsharkey]

I riveted a length of 3/4 angle to the firewall where the bent pin ends landed when installed. The angle flange has slots cut in it that I spring the bent pin ends into to secure.

Jim Sharkey
RV-6

 

[Darin Watson]

Secure upper cowl pins

With the left and right (or long and short if you prefer) bend at 90 deg + 90 deg for about 1/4" I simply zip tie them together just below the single screw above the firewall. They never seem to move but if they did neither can go more than about 5/8" either way and this makes them easy to get in and out.

 

[Frank Smidler]

Let it ride...on top

I have approximately a 3" handle bent on the end of the top aft pins and just push them in with no retainer. I was concerned about retaining them at first and kept an eye on them. In 350 hrs never saw them move. Now the bottom is a different story. The bottom aft pins, with no retainer, will work out and I always had to check them and push them back in before every flight. I also had 3" handles on these pins. I don't have this problem anymore. I wrapped the engine mount tubes near were the pins are with safety tape them took a doubled over pcs of safety wire that I had formed a loop in and twisted it on the tube. Now I push the handles up and spring the safetywire loop up and over the handle to retain them. Works great.

 

[John Courte]

Great ideas, thanks!

 

[Bob Axsom]

Looped ends safety wired together

I formed loops on the ends of the two opposing pins and after insertion I safety wire them together.

By the way I don't like the way Van calls for terminating those side pins. I put a side loop on the two hinge pins and cut a relief notch in the upped cowl to allow them to drop below the surface. Then I made two cover plates out of 0.016" thick aluminum that have three mounting holes in them. The holes are dimpled for #8 flat head screws. The plates wrap around the front of the cowl split. One screw on the outside goes into a platenut in the upper cowl and the other does the same in the lower cowl. The third screw goes through both cowl halfs on the inside of the inlet. This unloads the seperation force from the hinges and blocks the air path through the gap between the cowl halfs.

Bob Axsom