Change of direction

Today I spent a lot of time deliberating how to trim the front engine baffles to shape. Originally I had planned to do as much of the engine work as possible on the bench.

But I tried to fit the nose bowl, but it became obvious that I was going to have to mount the engine, then fit the nose bowl to do the job properly. So I’ve checked that the engine mounts will fit (they do), and what work needs to be finished on the baffle prior to mounting the engine. I’ll do those tomorrow as the rear baffles would be very difficult to remove after hanging the engine.

I also need to fit the rubber boots at the top of the gear legs which I forgot to fit last time.

This afternoon I removed the wooden firewall mock-up, and installed the titanium firewall and the engine mount.

I’d like to mount the oil cooler before the engine, just for ease of access and maybe the battery case too.

Now that the firewall is permanently installed I can also mount the instrument panel at any time. Much of the wiring is pre-made so will be done very quickly.