Fuselage – Page 3 – AZ Bearhawk

Oil door

We had a friends son come over to help for the afternoon. He wanted to see how sheet metal work was done. So we installed the oil access door for the top of the cowling.

Airbox intake

The carb isn’t exactly square on the engine, so I spent a lot of time trying to make the intake look right.

Cowling and My Goofy Brother!

Ta dah! This is the finished product after several days of measuring, measuring, measuring and oh yeah, measuring. Then a lot of fitting then finally drilling.

Installing clecos took a very long time with Timmy. He had to strike just the right pose to get the job done.

As you can see, he was very, very, very proud of his work installing that cleco.

Cowling!

My brother Timmy cam out again to help me tackle another large part of the plane. This time it’s the cowling. We spent several days working on this.

The largest part of the cowling is fitting and measuring!

Drilling the hinges for the doors was pretty easy. Yes, I was drilling over the carpet, but we cleaned up!

Trying to get everything lined up just right was a bit tough. So The method I came up with was to lay the door against the nose bowl. Then trace the edge of the nose bowl to the inside of the door.

Then we bought some masking tape that was exactly the width of the flange on the nose bowl. After putting the tape exactly on the line, I’d cut to the edge of the tape.

Worked perfectly!

Start of the cowling

We had to cut a hole to allow the carb through so we could position the cowling without interference. The manual says to take your time and cut the hole close. So we did.

Carb Studs

The carb studs weren’t out far enough so I had to unscrew them a bit.

They were awfully stuck! So we heated and removed them, then reset them to the proper position with locktite.

Building an airplane includes a lot of little steps and very big steps. The big ones are easy to keep track of. Wings, engine, landing gear, etc. Those are hard to miss. However, all the small things could slip thought the cracks if you’re not organized.

So as I’ve gone along, I’ve made a list of things that need to done as I see/think about them. Drilling the gear axels was on that list, so today I drilled them for the big castle nut and cotter pins.

Ge Strut Reinforcements

I got the heavy duty round landing gear legs. These are new from Avipro. After production of these, Bob Barrows recommended welding reinforcements to the shock strut.

Mark Goldberg had precut and bent the strips for me, so all that was left to do was the welding.

Not too bad for a novice welder like me!

Access Covers

There are 4 access covers on the empennage that cover the stabilizer attachments. I couldn’t find any ready made ones that fit as I like, so I made them.