I remade the exhaust hangers so that I clearance to install the aft SCAT tube on the heat muff. I ended up shortening each stainless tube by about 2″ or so and then re-flared the ends and reassembled each support. Shortening these caused them to splay out more which is what provided the additional clearance for the SCAT tube. Another advantage of this is that there is more lateral stability for the exhaust pipes.
Now that the exhaust pipes are in the final spot, I installed the adel clamp on the breather tube.
The lower end is positioned right over one of the exhaust pipes so that any oil blown overboard is burned off instead of coating the belly.
Since the cowl is on hold until I get a replacement lower half, I decided to finish off the canopy. Next up is to fabricate the side skirts. I installed a few screws on each side to hold the canopy against the canopy frame. This had the unfortunate side effect of pushing out the frame so that the side skirts are no longer flush with fuselage sides. I’ll have to gently flatten out the curve in the frame to pull the sides in a bit.
Since I was alone, I needed to be able to reach the screw on the outside and the nut on the inside at the same time. My arms were long enough to reach the aft and middle screws, but I needed to fabricate a little tool to hold the nut while I turned the screw from the outside.
Since I cut the forward skin back a bit so that the joint lines up with the bend in the longerons, the included skirts aren’t long enough. I used my air nibbler to cut some longer and narrower side skirts. These are 2.75″ wide and about an inch longer that the included skirts. Once these are fit to the canopy frame, I’ll trim the aft end to match the angle of the skin surrounding the rear window.
