First I have to follow up on my "issue" from Thursday. So in the post I mentioned that it was going to set me back "hours" or possibly "days". Well fortunately it was only hours. I was able to separate the cowling halves with just a little extra "force". We are now back on track!
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| The 'glass has been laid in this picture. Now its a matter of fill and sand, followed by more fill and sand... |
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| After a little sanding the transition from the skin to the windshield is looking good on the forward edges. |
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| The Top and sides still need a little work. In fact I had to add a few more layers of carbon fiber and fiberglass to the roll bar lip to strengthen it a bit. In this picture I have just added another layer of flox to be sanded down. Another couple of iterations of flox and sanding should get me close to complete on this task. |
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| If you look closely at the spaces between the inlets in the middle of this picture you can see where I laid several layers of fiberglass to form the flange for the front of the cowling. |
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| Hanging the cowling so the fiberglass can set up on the inlet rings. |
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| A bit hard to see but the white section is my new inlet ring grooved seat. There is one very similar on the bottom cowl and when the two are mated it creates a very nice and secure mount for the inlets. |
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| This is part of the induction system. The induction system allows fresh outside air to pass through a filter and then feed the engine. In this picture I had to add some fiberglass (ok a bit too much I agree) to the end to lengthen the inlet. In the next picture you can see what it looked like when I was done. |
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| Sanded and ready for more work. |
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| One aspect to all the fiberglass work I am doing is I have to wait long periods of time once I do a layup waiting for the epoxy to harden. So, I decided to get started on the baffles. The baffles help direct the cool outside air over the cooling fins on the cylinders. The engine is air cooled so its important that as much cooling air as possible flows where it will do the most good. That's a lot of parts! I thought I was about done with deburring, dimpling and riveting....ha! |
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| So I got the back part of the baffling installed temporarily. Then I set the James air plenum on the engine to see how much work it will require...Lets just say I have my work cut out for me.... Fit is not good. |
