The Instrument Cowling

This sections describes how we set up the Cowling for the instrument panel.

*** W A I T *** We made one BAD ASSUMPTION. We thought the bottom of the cowling rested on the floor of the plane. It does not. The cowling is much taller than the instrument panel. So all this work needed to be redone once we set the right height.

FIRST - You want to shorten the cowling. The instrument panel will be bolted to the pre-assembled unit on the main tube between the rudder pedals and the stick. The bolt hole on this unit is about 2 1/2" from the floor. So you want to start by cutting the cowling so it is about 2 1/2" longer than the instrument panel.

We ended up cutting our cowling about 1" lower than the instrument panel, then creating a few aluminum RIGHT ANGLE pieces to bolt the cowling to the floor. You may find a better way to assemble the cowling.

Again, we prototyped our cutting with a box. We cut a box so we had 2 halves that together was about 3" thick to fit around the cowling.

We started cutting areas around the tubing.

This was our final fitting for the left side.

This was the rear.

This was the right side.

Ed used a dremmel tool to cut out the traced areas.

Be sure to use a mask when cuttong the fiberglass.

Here we attached the panel to the cowling.

This is when we noticed the cowling was too long. At first we thought we could mount the cowling to the pre-assembled unit instead of the instrument panel. But then we realized the top of the cowling would hit the windshield. The cowling needed to be cut.

This is the final version of the left side.

Yellow Arrow - The aluminum right angle mount we created.

This is the final version of the right side.

Yellow Arrows - The aluminum right angle mounts we created.

Red Arrows - We used J-Nuts to mount the panel to the cowling. These allow us to unscrew the instrument panel from the cowling from the outside. We had some J-Nuts from Wicks, but they were very tight. We found some at the hardware store that were strong, but not crushing.

Yellow Arrows - These are the aluminum right angle mounts we created. We will rivet them to the floor, but screw them with J-Nuts to the cowling in case we want to remove the cowling.

Lastly, we painted the cowling with black Krylon "Fusion For Plastic" spray paint.

Again, don't forget the mask! (No, that is not Darth Vader)

Ah! Another accomplishment!

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