I started off today by cleaning up the aft side of the bottom cowling baffle mini-bulkhead and prepping the front side for the final layup.

I started with an inset ply of Lantor Soric to provide a little thickness and stiffness to the bulkhead, since this is also a stiffener for the bottom cowling.  I will be adding a short connected “wing” to each side, about 1/2″ high to finish off the bottom cowl stiffener on the aft side.

I then laid up the last single ply of carbon fiber, peel plied the edges that intersect the cowling and then along the top.

I cut the cardboard form and used the tape side against the top peel plied edge and clamped it into place with 2 larger clamps.  I then used clothesline pins to pinch the top seam together so that there was no resulting gap between the aft side and front side plies of CF.

With the left over epoxy I laid up a couple plies of CF on the aft left vertical side of the top cowl where there is a very slight depression (pic #1).  This should even it out straight so I’m not reliant on thicker micro to fill in the dip.

I also added a bit of flox to micro and filled in the errant first Static hole drilled on the right side nose (pic #2).  It may need a minor bit more when I finish micro-finishing the nose, but the major fill is complete.

I then spent a number of hours marking up and then using the band saw to cut out the baffle seals edge securing strips.  I also employed the Dremel tool a good bit to get these things shaped as well.

Here we have the right side and right front baffle seal edge securing strips set in place.

Another shot of the right side baffle seal edge securing strips set in place.

I was also able to complete the front side baffle seals edge securing strips.

And almost got the left side completed as well.  It was quite late at this point and those front side baffle seal edge securing strips are the most detailed of them all.  I kicked that can until tomorrow since there is a lot of cutting to do on this sucker.

With the front side layup on the bottom cowl baffle mini-bulkhead was about 80-90% cured, I pulled the edge peel ply before removing the clamps and cardboard form.

About an hour later I pulled the final piece of peel ply before razor trimming and sanding the edge.  Voila!  Bottom cowl baffle mini-bulkhead complete.

I then pulled the peel ply and cleaned up the layup on the aft left side of the top cowling as well.  Another minor yet important task off the to-do list!

Tomorrow I plan on knocking out the last topside (left) baffle seal edge securing strip before making up the ones for the lower baffle skirt.  At that point I’ll be ready to start installing the baffle seals, which I intend to get a fair amount, if not all of them, installed.

I got a late start today with a number of distractions before finally getting into the shop.

I transferred the thin cardboard bottom cowling aft bulkhead template to thicker cardboard.  I then dialed that in to fit the lower cowling.

Once fit into place, I then covered the cardboard form with duct tape as mold release.

I whipped up some epoxy to wet out and set peel ply onto the taped form.

I then laid up 2 plies of carbon fiber and peel plied the edges where they intersected the cowling.

Then, while setting the lower cowling into place on the plane, the lower baffle plate snagged the layup and distorted it a bit on the left side.  After messing with it for a minute, I realized I was about to make it much worse since I would lose a good number of the carbon fiber strands in that corner in my attempt to set it back right… so I called no joy and simply straightened out the fibers as best possible.  After all, the strength will be there, and it is in the lower engine area, it will simply be more of a cosmetic issue.  I’ll assess later if need be, and left it to cure.

I then turned my sights onto my “new” band saw —that my welder buddy James gave me— to get it up and running.  I spent about 45 minutes resetting the motor pully and dialing in the saw.

With the saw up and running, I then started trimming a number of 0.032″ 2024 scrap pieces from the VANs baffle kit to start making baffle seal edge securing strips.

The band saw worked a treat as I started cutting a number of these baffle seal edge securing strips.  Over the next day or so I’ll finish making these up to allow me to secure the top baffle seals to the aluminum baffle walls.

Tomorrow I’ll layup the front side of the bottom cowling baffle bulkhead and continue cutting out these baffle seal edge securing strips.  My goal is to have the baffles finished within the next few days.

I left out of the house today at around 5:30 am on my approximately 6.5-hour trek to the Asheville, NC area to pick up a Cozy III fuselage tub and rolls of UNI, BID and Ceconite from Forest, who was just wanting it all to go to a good Canardian home… or at a least a Canardian that tries really hard!  haha!

The builder was the late Wayne Martin out of South Carolina, who was Forest’s father-in-law.  Apparently Wayne traveled quite a bit for his job (I can relate!) and ended up in Thailand for many years, thwarting his efforts of finishing his Cozy III build.

Although the build plans are no longer with the project (I have a PDF copy), Forest did give me a manila folder with some info docs on the Cozy III, a Cozy III (just “Cozy” at the time) POH, and the original contract from August 1986 citing that this is serial number 302.  Official pedigree even… that’s pretty cool —all occurring as I was about a half year into my 29 year Air Force career, having just graduated the Naval School of Explosive Ordnance Disposal (NAVSCOLEOD) and heading off to RAF Upper Heyford, UK.  Crazy how life plays out.

Admittedly, my primary incentive for making this trip was the copious amount of fiberglass that Forest was including with the Cozy III project.  EZ-ily enough to do one canard airplane, probably over two of them in my estimation.  There were 2 very large rolls of UNI, a medium roll of UNI, and a large roll of BID all included.  Oh, and a longer, bigger roll of what Forest told me was Ceconite (top of pic) … for covering rag wing airplanes.

It took us about 10 minutes to get situated and get the fuselage tub loaded into the truck, and another 10 minutes of loading the glass in the back cab of my truck and tying everything down (that’s Forest in the background).

There were clouds in the sky and I of course didn’t want the fiberglass in the truck bed, exposed to the elements, so into the cab it went.

I thanked and said goodbye to Forest, grabbed some lunch in Hendersonville, and then started my trek back home.  Well, to my hangar actually.  Due to a wreck in Raleigh, where I sat (trapped) virtually dead still on the Interstate for 45 minutes, I didn’t arrive the hangar until after 10 pm.  But I got everything unloaded there without event and then had a very late-night bite to eat with Jess at a sports bar in downtown Morehead City.

Back to the Long-EZ build!

I spent a good bit of time today cleaning up the seams and adding more goop (hi-temp RTV) to a good number of holes or gaps in the engine baffling.  I added more to the outboard seams on the aft baffles, and if you look closely enough you can see a dot of RTV on each sidewall where the 2 side panels meet.

I then focused on the front top center seam between the engine and the baffle segments.  Pic #1 shows the aft side whereas pic #2 shows the front side of this junction.

On the front left I had a couple of open holes at the corner seam where I added dollops of goop to fill in.

There were some openings that required coming from underneath and some down in the remote inner corners, which were hard to get to and harder to get any pics of… and some will simply have to wait until the engine is off to get better access to.

Overall though the gap fill is nearly complete, and I’ll be moving on in my baffling efforts.

One such task is the aft bulkhead in the bottom cowling that will actually be part of the baffling system.

I first made up a rough cardboard template…

And then mounted the bottom cowling.  You can see what I’m up to here, where the baffle seals from the aluminum baffle skirt side (upper) will seal against the bottom cowl bulkhead.

It was getting late, so I headed back into the house when I was greeted by this giant moth.  Pretty cool looking!

Tomorrow I’m heading to the Ashville, NC area for a “quick” (all day) turn and burn to pick up a Cozy III fuselage and a bunch of UNI and BID that a very nice gentleman, Forest, is giving away to a canardian that will put it all to good use.  His father-in-law started the Cozy III build around 1986, but traveled the world in his job so unfortunately never got to see it completed.

I didn’t get nearly the shop work I was looking to get accomplished knocked out as planned, but I got a few other key things finished.

I started out this morning by pulling the front pair of clecos on the aft right outboard baffle wall and replacing those with rivets.  I’m leaving the very aft cleco in place since I’ll use that hole for mounting the baffle seal reinforcement strip.

Then I did the same thing on the left side.  Since the aft baffle shelf is narrower, I only have one rivet on this side.

Jess is starting back bartending again 2-3 times a week (for both EZ money and knowing that she’s going to be a “build widow” for the next few months!) and tonight she was going to work… so I ran over to Beaufort to meet her for lunch on the waterfront since I wouldn’t see much of her today.  An awesome view of the water that never gets old for me.

We then ran to the hangar for a bit and she helped me unpack and mount an end locker to my roll around tool cart.

Upon returning back home my Aircraft Spruce order had been delivered, of which contained a couple different lengths of 3/8″ bolts to replace the too-long pivot bolt on the B&C alternator.  This bolt also secures the cross link brace between the alternator and the starter.

Looking at the B&C L40 Alternator install manual I didn’t see any reference or diagram showing which direction this bolt was installed (or if it matters?) nor did I have any torque spec for the bolt securing the cross link brace to starter.  So I gave B&C a call.

B&C answered my questions, stating that they prefer the pivot bolt head to be on the same side as the alternator pulley.  TJ also stated the cross link brace isn’t required if the alternator is boss mounted (yeah, tell that to the mob at Rough River!!) and B&C didn’t have a torque spec for that bolt.  I told him that A) I bought the cross link brace and have it in hand, B) I have a big hole in the baffling where it was mounting into, and C) note “mob” reference above.  And no one is knocking this community off of our old wives’ tales!  He copied what I was saying and suggested I use Lycoming’s torque specs for a 5/16″ bolt (17 Ft-lbs).

I’ll note that this task would have been a nothing-burger if I had done it BEFORE tensioning the alternator belt.  Moreover, after measuring everything out, I determined that I could use the shorter (less weight) of my new bolts, the AN6-41A, but after install it turned out to be just a hair too short.  Swapping back out to the AN6-42A would have made for a good comedy short video, if in fact it were truly a short enough video!

Let’s just say it took WAY longer than it should have to swap this bolt out and get it installed, mainly due to alternator to boss alignment, but also the fiddly washers on the aft side… but as is always the case on these builds, perseverance paid off.

I then received a call from my good friend Greg, who was there at the very beginning when I decided to build this Long-EZ.  Before I started building I made up a wood mockup of the fuselage to determine if the stock cockpit width would be ok, and while I was out he actually climbed into the back seat of the mockup… and got stuck in there since there was no real strength to the mockup to support him climbing back out.  He essentially had to roll over sideways like a turtle to egress.  It made for a good story.

Before I headed back out to the shop I saw a note on the COBA forum from Marc Z. stating a guy in NC had a Cozy III fuselage and a bunch of Rutan fiberglass that belonged to his father-in-law who had passed away not too long ago.  He was either taking it all to the dump or giving it to a Canardian in need (that would be me in this story).  I’ll be heading inland Friday to pick up the goods!

Thus, after phone calls and collaborations, I was just heading back out to the shop when Jess called and said she was done for the night.  So unlike a normal build evening, I actually had dinner at a reasonable hour.  I’ll get to more baffle gooping tomorrow.

Inching forward.

Today I reached 2 significant milestones: first, finalizing the Static ports on each side of the nose, and then also getting all the aluminum baffles installed on the engine.

As far as the third hole for the Static port is concerned, I posted a question to a thread on the COBA forum that was initiated by a question a few years ago from a builder asking if the plans 3-holed static port was still a viable option.  There was an extensive answer replete with a lot of data from a Cozy builder showing that it was still a very good option.

My question:  “Does anyone know why 3 static holes are used on Canards vs the standard one per port on most airplanes? Also, curious if anyone has static ports on both left and right sides? Would that still be 3 holes per side, or perhaps reduce the number of holes since total holes/inputs would obviously increase?”

I was hoping one of the old guard gurus would chime in, and sure enough within an hour of my posted question, Marc Zeitlin took the bait, responding:
“Redundancy would be my guess – if one gets clogged (and you should be checking them on each CI, if not each Pre-Flight) you still have functionality.

Yes – many canards have static ports on both sides (and I definitely recommend it) for redundancy and accuracy in slips.

Holes are zero cost into the AL tubing buried in the fuselage side – what’s the harm in having multiple?”

My research, thus, is complete! (It doesn’t take much to win me over… ha!).  After Marc’s timely reply I then drilled the third hole on each side, tested that air was flowing from each new hole, and called it good!

I also rounded up some 1/4″ Nylo-Seal connectors and installed one on the end of each Static tube.  Voila!  Static system lines operational and ready for hookups.

I then spent about 6 hours total mounting all the side and front aluminum engine baffle segments.

I gooped up around the perimeter of the each cylinder valve cover and wherever there was any contact between baffle segments.

I also riveted the corners as best possible given the clearance I had inside the engine bay.  There are a few rivets left to finish, which will happen when I pull the engine off.  Also, because of the angle I had to employ to get in there and squeeze the rivets, there are 2-3 rivets that I will most likely drill out and redo once the engine is off… again, to straighten up any cockeyed rivets.

Moreover, on the seam at the dogleg of the two front left baffle segments, I used pop rivets since I simply could not get in there with my rivet squeezer.

I had pondered safety wiring the screws and bolts that hold the baffles in place, but between VANs not providing screws with safety wire holes in the heads, and not having good tie-off points, I simply followed Steve Beert’s recommendation of putting a dab of RTV on each screw before installing it.  That, with either a star or split-ring washer will have to do the trick.

I’d say I got around 80-90% of the gaps and seams filled, but will need to spend a good hour or two filling in the remaining obvious —and not quite so obvious— openings up with RTV goop.

This push made for quite a late night.  Moving forward!

I started out this morning back on the Static port lines embedded into each nose sidewall.  The first round of wet micro was nicely cured and holding the tubing well.

To finish the job on the inside and clean things up, I added a dollop of micro in the remaining divot on each sidewall, and then covered that with a small patch of BID.  I then peel plied the respective layups.

Although I only mixed up 8 grams of epoxy, I had a good bit left in my cup.  I didn’t want to waste it so I started in on some of my smaller composite tasks: first up was the aft inboard corner at the trailing edge of the right wing.  It was a little dinged up and didn’t come in or aft far enough, so I added a ply of UNI and then a patch of BID on top of that to fill in & add to the corner.  I then peel plied the layup and added some micro (leftover from above) with some flox for flocro to the underside corner to fill it in.

With still a bit of epoxy left over, I prepped and then laid up a small patch of carbon fiber to a small crack I had made in the thin cowling wall when prying off one of the rib baffle forms last year.  I of course peel plied that layup as well.

I had bought a roll-around tool cart at Harbor Freight while it was on sale, so I went down to pick that up and deliver it to the hangar at the airport.

A couple hours after getting back home I checked the layups, which looked fine, and then pulled the peel ply.   Here’s the left side Static port/line.

And here’s the right side Static port/line.

I then figured out my spacings on-center for each hole at 0.4″, and 3 holes a side per plans… but only drilling the bottom 2 now since I do want to do some research on whether I should have 2 holes per side or the 3 called out in the plans (but only one side).  My thinking taking into account that there’s 3 total holes on one side per plans, is between the following:
⇒ 3 per side on 2 sides (6 holes total input),
⇒ 2 per side on 2 sides (4 total input vs the original plans 3 total holes).
If that makes sense.

Regardless, the left side drilling went fine, and I was able to confirm clear air passage from each hole into the Static tube.

Just to see how visible the holes were without the black Sharpie line, I removed the line with Acetone.

I then applied my hole drilling tape template on the right side, but after drilling the bottom hole I was getting no air through the line.  Clearly I was off.

But how to find the center of the Static line tubing without simply resorting to trial and error, random hole drilling?  I found a cable that was actually magnetic, then grabbed a high-strength magnet.  The cable was too big to get around the inside bends of the 1/4″ tubing, so I had to split it in half.

With the remaining strands, I ran those into the tubing and then was able to find the center of the line with the magnet.  Clearly being off less than 0.1″ here made all the difference in the world, since the bottom errant hole did not allow any air passage, while the one just up and aft of it did.  Clearly a dab of micro will be required to fix this minor oops.

After the right side Static line drilling shenanigans, I got to work on installing the aft lower right engine baffle.  After taping up the edges to ensure I didn’t get black goop in even more unwanted places then I did, I physically installed the right aft baffle with screws and rivets.

I then gooped up the seams along the front edge with the #2 cylinder and the inboard edge with the engine case.

I also ran a bead of goop along the left and right lower baffle seams, before tying them together with a screw, a lower rivet and the starter-to-alternator bracket.

I was using the rivets I got with the VANs Baffle Kit, but I will note that I had misfires on 2 of the 4 rivets and had to resort to some creative, judicious Dremel work to trim the remaining short stub of unsnapped rivet pins staring me in the face (annoying!).

As I did last night, I waited a bit —only 30 minutes this time!— for the goop to set up before removing the protective edge tape.  The result was pretty good.

With all my other sideline activities today, I didn’t get to the underside of the baffles to goop up the seams yet, but plan to do that tomorrow.  Again, hopefully if all goes well I’ll get all the side and front baffle walls installed as well.

Pressing forward!

My first task this morning was to safety wire the last bolt on the alternator that secures it to the bracket arm.  However, when I tried to insert the 0.032″ safety wire it felt like it was snagging up on something.  I’ll note that when I was I tightening this bolt yesterday during its final torque, my 1/2″ wrench slipped off it a couple times… then slightly rounded, it was hard to get the wrench back on (I found out WHY today… read on!).

Well, I used the smallest drill bit I had, 0.040″ to clean out the hole, with very little resistance.  Probably just a burr I thought, so I pressed forward with my safety wire job.  After pulling the wire tight, it simply tore out the bolt head side and popped out of the channel.  Yup, the wire had pulled right through the seemingly soft bolt (equivalent to Grade 5 I found out).

Clearly I needed a new bolt.  As insurance in case I couldn’t find one locally, I finished up an order I had sitting on ACS for nearly 2 months now, of course adding a 5/16″ AN bolt with a hole in the head.  With the damaged bolt with me, I then went downtown to grab a Grade 8 fine 5/16″ bolt and try my luck at drilling a hole through the head to get this alternator installed!

It was at Lowe’s that I discovered that this was not in fact a 5/16″ bolt, but rather a M8-1.25 metric bolt.  Hornswaggled again!  Hmmm??  Well, they didn’t have any Grade 5 or 8 metric bolts, so I went to another local hardware store that carries just about everything.  There they had both 8.8 (~Grade 5) and 10.9 (~Grade 8) bolts, so I grabbed both.

Below is the original bolt sitting on the C-clamp, and the Grade 8 equivalent clamped up to have the head drilled to take safety wire.

I didn’t mess around with trying to go through a corner, but rather went straight through a wrench flat… Success!

I then installed the new bolt, got the alternator positioned and then torqued it to spec.  Once in, as you can see, I got this sucker safety-wired up.

Now to digress a bit from engine stuff.

A while back I was looking at some various airplanes at the airport, including a Long-EZ, and noticed the seeming lack of STATIC ports on Long-EZs… clearly because the plans simply has an aluminum tube in the side wall with 3 tiny holes drilled into it.  I had planned on using more traditional static ports but as I thought about it, I liked the look (or “non-look”) of nearly imperceptible static port(s).  To be clear, I’ll note that the plans only has a static port configured on the left side.

In a recent discussion with Marco, I circled back to the plans style static ports and asked his opinion on going with one side only or both sides more in line with a traditional light aircraft (or quite a few out there I should say).  He was of the opinion that for a plane that is IFR capable it should have 2 static ports, one each side.  I point out this discussion because beyond observing what other planes have, I’m going to admit that I don’t claim to know the in-depth dynamics of one vs two of these suckers.  And honestly I’m not going to take the time to do research, so Marco’s kung-fu wins out here by default and I’m cramming 2 of the original style static tubes in my bird… one each side.

Thus, I pulled up Chapter 13, cut two 6″ lengths of 3003-0 tubing (plans calls out 5052, but I didn’t have any on hand) and cleaned them up.

I then crimped the ends on one side, flattened the outboard side a bit (to make the tube more “D” shaped, with the flat side going against the inner skin of the outer wall.  I then bent the tubes as I thought they would need to be inside the avionics area [that changed in rather short order… ].

Now, many, many years ago I had marked the sidewalls with the plans position for the static ports.  I’ll note that I have the more traditional looking ones actually on hand and those things are just under 1″ around max on the exterior side, much less than that coming through the sidewall.  One thing I wasn’t expecting (unintended consequences) was having a clearance issue with my embedded rudder/brake cable conduit and the now longer height-wise static tube.

This caused me to have to move my static ports up about 1/2″ from the plans position. Deal breaker?  I highly doubt it.

I spent about 20 minutes each side drilling the starter hole, then digging out the foam and increasing the height of the hole so the static tube would sit flat against the inside surface of the outer sidewall skin.

Before I micro’d the static tubes into place, I used my shop light to shine through the new holes/slots to mark the outside of the nose to establish a “drill line” where the 3 holes will get drilled (which I’m pondering the number now that I have 2 static inputs).

I then whipped up some wet micro, as per plans, and poured it into the static tube holes before then reinserting the static tubes into the wet micro.  Since a good bit of both holes are below the exiting tube, I simply used a piece of tape to keep the micro from running out and the tubes in place.  Tomorrow I’ll add more micro and probably a small patch of BID across the extended oval-shaped hole.

Here’s the left side static port.

And the right side.  The tape and popsicle stick is to keep the static tube flat against the outer skin.

I then got to work on the right aft lower baffle bracket, what I’ve been referring to as the “Melvill” baffle bracket.  I gooped up the lower and forward edge, as well as around the large engine bolt, before bolting the bracket into place.  I then safety wired the bolts.

Again, another minor yet important task complete!

On the left side I actually kicked off the no-kidding baffling installation by riveting the lower aft baffle segment to the underlying bracket (pic below)… Now, beforehand I did goop up the front edge tabs that go against the inner baffles.  After the rivets were installed, and I then taped up the area around/over them to protect against the black goop (RTV).  I then finished gooping up the front edges and corners of the left aft lower baffle.

I waited well over an hour to let the goop set up and then carefully pulled the tape off the top.  Some of the goop had cured fully and was rubbery, while some of it underneath was still wet and would cause a mess requiring cleanup.  Overall I think it looks pretty darn good (note the inboard rivets).

Tomorrow I’ll get up underneath the baffle and goop up all the seams from the underside as well.  I also plan on getting the right aft lower baffle installed, and… who knows?  Maybe the topside baffles as well!

I actually installed that darn alternator 3 times! But let me digress and start from the beginning…

I started out today trimming and rounding the lower aft right baffle’s outboard mounting tab.  I then copied the tab’s shape onto a scrap piece of 2024 0.032″ baffling material to cut out a reinforcement doubler for the tab.

I then drilled the screw hole and riveted the doubler into place.  Another minor yet important task complete!

I then measured out and determined the rivet spacing on the left baffle inboard side.  Once I got the spacing dialed in, I then drilled the 3 future rivet holes and Clecoed the baffle to the bracket.

I then did the same thing on the right aft lower baffle.

Here we have the aft edge alignment between the left and right aft lower baffles… I have to say I like this stylistically, and thankfully Mike incorporated it into his “Beasley Baffles.”

I then focused on getting the B&C L40 alternator installed.  It was definitely an iterative process for getting both the alternator installed (especially with the crazy amount of tightness B&C calls out for on a new belt!) and getting the aft left baffle face alternator opening trimmed for the alternator to fit in there correctly.

Well, the third time is a charm!  Here we have the actual final baffle trimming complete with the alternator installed and belt tight as can be (since it’s a new belt).  Yes, there is a bit more of a gap on the bottom side of the alternator with the baffling, but as the belt stretches and the alternator is moved down a bit to keep the slack out, I think it will all work out over time.

In addition, I got the engine-side alternator bracket bolt safety-wired as well as the left side baffle bracket screw.  I do have the alternator-side bracket bolt yet to safety-wire.

I also needed to take out the “V” between the exhaust pipes on the right side baffle outboard/aft face (skirt”) to allow clearance for the crankcase vent tube that will be nestled in between the pipes on the top side.

Also note yet another right-side baffle securing screw (just below the clecos) that secures the baffle face to the underneath Melvill bracket.

Finally, we have shots of the baffle-to-pully clearance on the left side with the alternator installed, and on the right side as well.

I’m hoping to get these baffles no-kidding installed, gooped up at the seams and perimeter sealing material attached over the next few days.

Today was about no-kidding getting the left and right aft lower baffles segments dialed in and very close to their respective, and colllective, final positions.

I started out by mounting the lower cowling to check clearance on both baffles sides.  Each side needed trimming at the bottom curve to provide clearance closer to a 1/2″.  The outboard areas needed more trimming as well to allow the exhaust pipes to come further inboard.

Also, the aft vertical 90° “outriggers” on both sides needed some trimming as well since they were both too close to the inside cowling surface.

Here are the trim marks on the aft vertical 90° “outriggers”… both sides were much too close to the upper cowling.

I then did some more work around the starter, and specifically on the B&C cross-brace betwixt alternator and starter.  This brace will be touching metal (or washers) on both the starter and alternator side as if it were mounted normally (if there is any such thing on a Long-EZ!!), the difference being now it will pin down the aluminum baffle edges in its center area between the bolts.

Also note that I drilled a screw hole at the top (seen through the flywheel balancing hole) and mounted a K-1003 platenut on the left baffle edge, to allow securing the two baffle segments together.  Besides the sealing material along the bottom edge of both baffle pieces, I also intend to install a rivet or two along the seam, below the cross-brace.

Another shot of the starter, mounted cross-brace and upper baffle seam screw.

I then spent some time on the outboard sides of the baffles, securing those to the aft vertical baffle walls once I got the positions dialed in.  Once the holes were drilled, I used clecos to tie them all together.

I also spent a good little bit drilling the outboard mounting screw tab to get the position and elevation as correct as possible on the right side (note: the elevations on these baffles are definitely not perfect, but functional and Pretty Darn Good!)

With the left and right aft lower baffle segments pretty much in final position, I measured the gap between the aft face of the baffles and the pulley on the flywheel at ~0.24″ minimum, so I’m good on clearance.

It was time to check my exhaust pipes’ positions, and to do that I needed the lower cowling back on since it has my left inboard exhaust pipe alignment mark.

With the bottom cowling mounted, I then confirmed my exhaust pipe positions and the clearance between cowl and the bottom edge of the baffles were good.  All checked out.

Here we have the lower center section —alternator and starter area— of the aft lower baffle(s).

I then installed the spinner lampshade flow guide to check how everything looked and again to take a look at the exhaust pipes in relationship with the flow guide, etc.

I then set the top cowling in place to check the clearance between it and the aft vertical 90° “outriggers” on both sides.  On the left the clearance is ~3/4″ while on the right it’s a bit less.

Then a shot each side of the overall look if one were to peer into the cowling.  And yes, my pipes still need work (I’ll reiterate that I am now convinced that these are the WRONG pipes for this cowling-engine configuration).

Inching forward . . .