Roll over frame

Roll over frame

I've been plugging away on the Roll over frame, engine mount, landing gear legs and engine cowling, it's finally starting to come together, the roll over frames are completed. It took a bit to trim to the right height as I didn't want to trim off too much, lots of checking and double checking, it's now ready to position and drill off the mounting brackets. She is starting to take shape now, it feels really good to see some good Visual Progress (VP), as you can tell in my photo. I couldn't help myself so I put on the engine cowling and canopy to see what she looked like. I'm getting close to start trimming the canopy, I have a couple of things to sort out on the tip up frame first.

Drilling off the new frame with the old bent frame as reference.

New Roll over Frame in place, She's looking good..

 Engine Mount and Landing Gear

I'm waiting to get the landing gear legs onto a mill so I can do the freeze plug repairs to the mount bolt holes that don't line up with the engine mount bolt holes, The LH leg is almost a half a hole out of alignment, the RH leg isn't as bad, prob around a 1/16th out, the reason for this is the new legs and engine mounts are match drilled at the factory, the second hand legs I've got don't match, I've made up a sturdy drill jig to pick up the original bolt holes in the engine mount, I'll back drill the holes through the repaired legs to original bolt size, I've spoken to the engineers at work about the repair idea and they don't see any problems with it as the loads and break out strengths are all in the right directions and there are no design changes. Once the legs are sorted I'll be able to sort out the Eng mount, fire wall and wiring, more VP..

Drill jig for the engine mount and landing gear

LH Landing gear hole out of alignment

Engine cowling remodeling and repairs

I've almost finished the engine cowling, I've changed the cowl pin arrangement, it's now easy to access the pins through access holes at the front of the cowling, the new set-up also tidies up the air flow in and around the cowl inlets, I thought I had finished the cowling work until I found a large area of heat damaged fibre glass from the exhaust pipes, I've cut out the damaged area, filled in the honey comb, ready to lay 2 layers of glass over the repair area, then fingers crossed it's all done ready for paint. I'm still thinking of what I can do for a heat barrier for that area, Kiero suggested using a heat shield mounted to the exhaust pipes in that area as well as another form of heat shield mounted to the cowling adjacent to the pipes

Heat damage to the Engine cowling