12
54. Install the motor and mount onto the firewall. Note: you may
need to drill out the mount bolt holes to 15/16" because sometimes
the blind nuts will extend through the firewall a little. Either that, or
you can epoxy a piece of 1/8" ply to the back of the firewall before
installing the blind nuts. This will increase the thickness of the firewall
so the blind nuts don't extend all the way through.
56. Slide the firewall box into the fuselage and tape the cowl in place
along the molded lines on the fuselage
57. Attach the spinner backplate and prop to the engine and align
the backplate with the front of the cowl. There should be a 1/8" gap
between the spinner backplate and the front of the cowl. Note: You
will be able to move the engine box slightly to center the engine. If
you can't adjust the engine box as much as is required, then you
may need to make a small adjustment of the cowl in order to fit it per-
fectly to the spinner backplate.
58. Once you are sure of the correct cowl alignment, drill 5/64" holes
at various mounting locations (we drill 9 evenly spaced holes)
around the cowl and into the fuselage.
59. Remove the cowl and engine box from the fuselage.
60. Place a piece of masking tape over the outside of each hole to
keep epoxy that you will be using in the next step from leaking
through onto the fuselage.
61. Use 100 grit sandpaper to lightly sand the inside of the fuselage
around each hole that was drilled in the previous step. Clean the
area with denatured alcohol. Preparing the fuselage this way will
help the epoxy bond the wood cowl reinforcement blocks to the
fuselage.
62. Locate the 3/4” x 3/8” x 12” hardwood stick and cut it into 1”
lengths.
55. Now is a good time to apply a little extra epoxy to the joints on
the inside of the firewall box. This will insure that vibration will not
break the firewall box apart.
