Now that the oil cooler is enclosed within the oil cooler box, the
assembly needs to be mounted onto the cooling duct. The fiberglass cooling duct
will eventually be bonded onto the lower cowling and in addition to being the
mounting point for the oil cooler assembly, it will also create a tunnel to
provide cooling air for the coolant radiator. However, prior to mounting the
oil cooler assembly onto the fiberglass cooling duct, the fiberglass needs to
be trimmed down to the scribe lines along the outer perimeter of the fiberglass
duct and also the rectangular opening the oil cooler will mount onto. Of course,
wouldn’t you know I would pick the first 90 degree day with high humidity to
sit in the sun and grind, sand and file fiberglass all afternoon. I used the
Dremel outfitted with a cutting wheel then sanding drums to get the fiberglass
close to the trim scribe lines.
Sitting in the hot sun on a hot humid day using the Dremel outfitted
with a sanding drum grinding away fiberglass to get close to the scribe lines in
the area where the oil cooler will mount.
Once the Dremel work was completed, the cooling duct was hand sanded
using a sanding block and tweaked in a couple of places with a file.
Hand sanding the edge of the fiberglass duct to the scribe lines.
After the sanding was completed, the opening in the duct was placed over
the oil cooler and the overall fit was checked.
Overall fit is looking good at this point, just needs a couple of tweaks.
A couple of spots were tweaked
a little and then the frame of the cooler box was clamped to the duct so the
two nutplate holes on the top flange of the oil cooler box can be match drilled
into the fiberglass duct.
The oil cooler assembly clamped to the duct after being centered in the
opening and ready to be flipped over for drilling.
With the oil cooler assembly now clamped onto the fiberglass duct, it's in
position to match drill the fiberglass duct using the two nutplate holes that
can be seen on the top flange of the oil cooler box.
By this time it was getting late, so stopped short of drilling the holes
so that will be the next task during the next work session.
