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Starduster
| From the front the airplane looks like a large mouth bass with its mouth wide open. So, during the overhaul we decided to clean it up a bit and match the nose bowl with the plenum box. While the engine was still on the airplane, we filled the cowling with foam so we would know exactly where everything was... mainly the prop. We're going to reshape the nose bowl to accomplish a few things:
Jason wanted to take some of the height off the top of the bowl and match the curve of the rest of the bowl so we took a cut-off wheel and brought the top portion back in line to match the rest of the slope.
We shaped the foam to the contour we're wanted and laid fiberglass over the whole thing. Taking the foam out wasn't as easy as we thought, but it eventually gave way. A little wire brushing to clean it off and a little more fiberglass on the back to strengthen things up. Don't know if it was necessary, but we reinforced the front with a couple of aluminum strips to add a little strength to the small braces. A small tunnel was made for the oil cooler so it was perpendicular to the wind. This should improve it's cooling ability significantly. After we mated the nose bowl to the plenum box we found we no longer needed the cutout for the starter so we covered that too... nothing like adding a few more steps to the process. The plenum box was mated to the nose bowl with 1/8" x 3" black mat silicone material. This is the only place the air could escape. The matting will lay flat against the inside of the fiberglass bowl, making a air-tight seal. Nose Bowl Finished! - January 7, 2005... almost!Well, like the plenum box, this took much, much longer than anticipated. However, everything is coming together now and is going to be so much better when finished. Was that a bitch to get on!! I think I had to take a bit of metal away from just about everything!... cowling braces, tunnel for oil cooler, bottom of oil cooler bracket, reshape sides of baffles, bracing behind nose bowl, whew!... Finally, everything fits. I was a little concerned that the hole in the nose bowl is too close to the spinner in the 8 o'clock position. So I took the whole thing off again and grind it out a bit, re-glass. Actually it took me two times! January 14... well, it's being painted again. Yesterday it reached 59 degrees!... today it's 16 with no warm spell in sight! Wow... this will never end.
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