Top Cowling Fitting

I know it's been a while since my last post. Sorry Dad! Party because I've been working and vacationing. I've been in the shop too but just didn't have much to show for it till now. I've decided the cowling is a pain in the ass to do. The extensive trimming, sanding and fitting is tedious, messy and takes forever. I got the 2 cowling halves to match up pretty well after a lot of tweaking and sanding. The plexiglass cowling tool Craig and I designed is mounted to the crankshaft flange. This tool allows me to cleco the front of the cowling directly to it. Doing that provides a rigid, accurate and repeatable position during the many times the cowling comes on and off during the sanding process. It also precisely defines the 3/16" spinner bulkhead to cowling clearance and accounts for engine sag over the first 100 hours. The clear Plexiglas is rigid and easy to see through. It gets the prop out of the way during the fitting process. I struggled yesterday getting the cowling level in roll. Measuring from fixed points on either side of the intakes to the ground yielded a 5/16" difference. The spec is 1/16" or less. You have to be careful not to distort the cowling when mounted or it will cause problems later. It turned out the garage floor under the engine was significantly out of level. The fuselage was level but the floor under the engine wasn't. Shimming my 48-inch level and measuring to that yielded much better results. As near as I can tell the cowling is now within 1/16" of level with very little distortion needed to achieve that. Once level and secured I drilled holes in the Plexiglas spinner bulkhead to cleco the front of the cowling to secure it. These holes will be easily filled and sanded with resin and cotton flox later. Using a piece of scrap, I fashioned a simple edge finding tool to define how much fiberglass needed to be trimmed off the aft edge of the cowling to be flush with the forward fuselage. Using a cutting disc, palm sander and sanding block I reduced the cowling aft edge to lay flush on the mounting hinges. 97% of the way there.