Started off the day by notching the eyelets of the rear cowl hinge. Since the hinge curves, it’s a little tight to slide the hinge in place. Trimming the edges of the eyelets solves this problem.
Next, I worked on the hinge pin retainer. This is a small piece of aluminum that both holds the top cowl hinge pins in place, and closes up the access hole for the pins. I did have to trim the hinges back just a bit to get this to fit properly.
Then, I countersunk all the hinge rivet holes. There are a lot of them.
Next up, I bondo’d in place the foam snorkle plug I cut to shape in a previous post. Once the bondo was dry (the bondo is just a temporary glue), I cut an opening thru the foam, and carved a nice smooth transition shape between the cowl snorkle and the filtered air box.
With the foam block carved, I removed the cowl and laid up a few layers of fiberglass inside the opening I just made. This fiberglass is the permanent transition, and the foam block is just a form for creating it.
And finally, I epoxied in place the inlet air ramps into the cowl top. These keep the airflow into the baffle area as smooth as possible.
