There will be some rivets in the area where the clamp is.
Here is a picture from the front, showing the left rear baffles in place.
The arrow points at the hole for the engine mount where I'll need to
cover that hole with some baffle seal material:
There will be some rivets in the area where the clamp is.
At this point I will trim the side and rear baffles enough to fit the top engine cowl back on. Once that is fitted, I'll remove the top cowling again, and then move on to the front baffle floors and the baffles that go around the front of the engine.
The first step was to trim the front of the side baffles enough to get the nose bowl and prop spinner back on.
Once the nose bowl was back in place, I propped it up to the correct height
(aligned with the top of the spinner) and measured for how much I'll need
to trim the rear baffles so the top cowl piece can be reinstalled. To
measure, I removed the left rear baffle (leaving the right rear baffle in
place) then laid a straight edge from the top of the nose bowl to the top
of the firewall (to simulate the top cowling):
Now, with the straight edge in place I can see that I will in fact need to alter that rear baffle bracket on top of the engine. As suspected, it stands too tall by about 1".
The side and rear baffles were trimmed about a 1/2" at a time until I could fit the top cowl and doors on and the doors could be closed and latched. Then I put a light inside near the firewall and closed the cowling doors. Van's recommends that you have exactly 1/2" clearance (no more and no less) between the baffles and the cowling. This allows for engine movement. The gap will later be sealed with baffle fabric. With the light inside, I could look in through the air inlets at the front and see where I needed a bit more trimming on the side and rear baffles to achieve 1/2" clearance from the cowling.
The sides needed quite a bit of trimming as you can see here:
As you can see, the side baffles were trimmed all the way down to the
top of the reinforcement piece on the front one. The baffles on right
side of the engine had to be trimmed even more, actually trimming away 1/2
the reinforcement piece on the front cylinder.
Here is a picture of the rear baffle and also shows the re-shaped support
bracket at the top rear of the engine:
The slots are cut into the rear baffle to clear the top cowling "U"
channels.
Here is front view of the baffle system at this point. These are final
trimmed to the correct height to achieve exactly 1/2" clearance from the
top cowl and doors when in the closed position.:
Now we will start on the baffles for the front of the engine. These baffles create a floor of sorts at the bottom of each air inlet from the nose bowl. Also at the front, a couple of pieces will wrap around behind the flywheel to to create a seal for the entire front of the engine.
We will start with the front right baffle floor (in front of cylinder #1)
Here is a picture of the brace for the front floor and you can also
see the bracket at the top center of the engine for the baffles that wrap
around behind the flywheel:
