Fitting the Cowling
The aft edge of the cowling is
re-enforced with a couple layers of 2" fiberglass tape. This increases it's
thickness to make a smooth and level transition to the fuselage skin. Here
ace rocket builder Reed Somberg applies these tapes to my cowling. Little
did i know I'd be paying back this favor as reed is now building his own F1
Rocket with my help! In the background is another talented builder and
financial analyst, Eric Henson, also helping out with the HS.
Here the Team Rocket loaner alignment jig has been fitted to the engine
crankshaft. This jig holds the cowling in place with reference to the
engine so the aft edge of the cowl can be trimmed and drilled. It worked
very well. When the prop and spinner was delivered, they fit perfectly.
So now the whole this
has been trimmed and fitted. It took two weeks to get this far . There is
still plenty of work to do! The hinges were installed like this... After
drilling all the hinge holes, I glued the hinged to the cowling with JB
weld, with the hinges being held in place with clecos during the curing
process. After the JB weld hardened, I installed the rivets. Every rivet was
installed with more JB weld. So far this extra works has paid off as all the
rivets remain invisible through the paint. The other reason for doing it
this way, is the hinge eyes should last longer as the hinge wasn't deformed
during riveting. The hinge retained its' natural shape and the hinge wires
are easier to install now.
This photo shows how much
opening is left after setting the aft cowl edge into place. There is about
one inch of clearance above and below each exhaust pipe.
The air filter box assemble looks like this. I needed to make AL brackets to
hold the K&N filter assembly firmly in place, other wise the filter jumped
bounced around with no hope of sealing out dirty air.
The box has been assembled and ready for the installation of the Rocketboy
bypass valve.
Here the Bypass valve has been installed and shown in the open position. You
can buy a kit for this part from the products page soon!
Looking in the air intake towards the injector body with filter removed. The
whole thing is tied together with a short piece of 3" diameter SCEET tubing
and a Rocketboy Bendix intake adapter.
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Cowling
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