February 24 2021
I got into work on calculating how I could get the air intake on the front of the lower cowling to mate with the intake opening of the Air Filter Box. Numerous friends had mentioned it was a tricky bit of maneuvering to get the lower cowling on and mate the air intake. A friend with a RV mentioned I could cut off the front of the cowling intake and make it removable. This sounded perfect, so I did some internet research and found some guidance. I decided to make the front intake removable with an attached tube entering the Filter box.
Below after the foam was shaped the difficult part was getting the 3 layers of glass cloth lined on the inside of the opening.
Glassing of tube completed, time to cut off the intake after finding a pleasing cut line.
I trimmed the new fiberglass tube to about 4 inches long.
Using tongue depressors as spacers I bonded the intake back on using auto body putty. Then working on the inside of the lower cowling I laid up 3 layers of glass for a flange. The gap where the cut line was will later be filled using micro.
After trimming, nut plates were mounted in the newly formed flange. I should have made the upper nut plates at 10 oclock and 2 oclock as it was hard to get the rivet squeezer placed at the 12 position.
Hand carved a piece of foam until it was a the proper shape of air intake and of the Filter box. Covered the foam with packing tape and then temp. bonded into the air intake unit.
Very happy with the finished product, it makes a beautiful fit to the filter box entry mounted on the engine.
