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Matt Dralle's RV-8 Project
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Date: 9-5-2009
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Number of Hours: 1.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Oil Fill Door Installation - Part 1
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There's a large indent on the top, right side of the fiberglass cowling intended for the installation of the oil fill door. Van's supplies a molded, fiberglass door that's rough-cut to shape and has score marks for cutting to the "exact" shape. Well, that door came our alright and I even installed the hinge and camloc, but I was totally dismayed to find that there was a warp in the door such that it wouldn't fit down flush with the top of the cowling in the back. I thought about ordering a new fiberglass door, but I couldn't seem to find the part on the Van's online ordering system.
So, I thought, that fiberglass door was cheesy anyway and seemed like it was prone to breaking and wearing out. I fished around the sheet metal pile and found a nice piece of .063 2024-T3 and cut out a new door. The catch was, as it turned out, that there is kind of two bends in the door. There is the front curve (small), and the rear curve (large) and there is a slight taper from front to back. That meant that I had to somehow convince the .063 to bend ever-so exactly to match the contour of the cowling opening. After a few cus-words, I got it to fit pretty nicely. Installation of the after-market, hidden hinge from http://www.nonstopaviation.com/ is a sweet piece of hardware I would highly recommend. The Camlock is also a nice touch and gives a totally clean top surface in lew of the stock wing nuts. These are also available from NonStopAviation.
I wanted the hole in the cowling to have nice radiused corners which would prevent cracking later and, well, just look a lot nicer. Once again the Unibit was my friend and allowed me to drill some super sharp holes. The Dremel with a 409 cutoff wheel did a nice job on the sides of the hole.
Cont. Next Log Entry...
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Fiberglass Cowling Marked
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Corners Radiused With Unibit
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Sides Cut With #409 Dremel Cutoff Wheel
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Copyright © 2008-2024 Matt Dralle. All Rights Reserved.
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