Today, I started off by riveting the baffle material I cut up last night in place.
Then, I sanded down the filler I added around the oil door, and worked on getting the final fit just right. I also final riveted all the pieces of the door together. I had to do a little more filler to fill the holes from the clecos.
Finally, I installed the TCW Tech oil heater butterfly valve and servo. This is another concession to living in Minnesota. When it’s really cold out, it’s hard for an air/oil cooled engine to get up to a proper operating temperature. This valve basically allows me to adjust the amount of cooling air that gets to the oil cooler with a knob in the cockpit. That means it could be -10 when I take off in Minnesota, and I can close off the oil cooler and have a nice warm engine… but when I land in Florida where it’s 80, I can have the cooler wide open so I don’t overheat.
I also put the top cowl on to see how the baffle material is laying against it. It’s looking pretty smooth to me! There was only one spot on the front middle seal that needed to have a small slit to get things to lay down better.
