Quote Originally Posted by ceslaw View Post
Cowl

Reading the manual and viewing the video more than once, I was expecting the cowl installation to be a time consuming difficult task. It turned out to be straight forward and was completed in three afternoon sessions.
The first session was fitting the top and bottom halves, the bottom filter cover, and the oil access door. Cub Crafters had pre trimmed all these pieces so there was only minimal trimming required, contrary to the description in the manual and video. Nonetheless a long sanding block with 180 and 320 grit paper does come in handy.

Next the nut plates to join the top and bottom halves and the bottom filter cover were installed. We made our own drilling template by using a Cleco and just the “plate” part of a nut plate. Set it in place, drill the rivet holes with a 12” long bit (to clear the Cleco), and everything lines up perfectly.

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The second session was fitting the assembled cowl to the boot cowl. Per the video the initial trimming was done with a tin snips. The opening around the flywheel was already trimmed to the final dimensions by Cub Crafters, so assuring it was centered was straightforward. Once the trim was close, with less than 1/8” variations where the cowl and boot cowl meet, quarter inch blue vinyl tape was placed on the cowl, following the edge of the boot cowl exactly. Then half inch blue masking tape was placed on the cowl side of this blue tape and the blue tape was removed. The edge of the masking tape defined the cut line. A Dremel tool was used for the final cut. This produced a precise cut line that required virtually no sanding to produce a fit with no gaps. We ended up with exactly a quarter inch between the back of the spinner plate and the front of the cowl.

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The third session was placing the nut plates on the boot cowl. One little tip: locate the nut plate that is at the top and bottom cowl seam to line up with the horizontal line of screws that hold the top and bottom together. This may require that the spacing of the boot cowl screws specified in the manual by changed by a slight amount.

The point where the top and bottom halves of the cowl overlap the flange on the boot cowl is a bit awkward due to the thickness of two layers of carbon fiber. We sanded that area down to near index card thickness at the aft edge to assure a smoother transition.

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The end result was a tight fit with no ‘bulge.”

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Chuck, Thanks for this post. Just finished mounting the cowl and your tip here about using the blue, 1/4" tape worked MUCH better than trying to scribe the line and cutting. I did it this way using the dremel cut-off blade as well and it came out about as much of a perfect fit as you could get. Thanks again!