Last night I got my air compressor oil change and maintenance tasks finally completed, with some test runs to ensure the pressure valve was working correctly.  All looked good.

I also took out the oil heat sump street fitting with standpipe to do some “spot welds” on it just to ensure it’s physically fit for duty in the engine.

Today I got back to work on the aft/lower engine baffles by putting the thick paper templates back in place.  I made notes and trimmed the templates in various spots as I worked to dial in the final configuration of the lower baffle “skirt.”

After removing the aft/lower baffle templates, I figured it was time to add in the last reinforcement piece to the “Melvill” baffle bracket that mounts to the aft right side of the engine.

I scrounged around for the best piece of scrap left over from the VANs baffle kit, made up my tape template on the bracket and then transferred it to the scrap aluminum piece.  I then cut out the reinforcement plate and bent the tabs on the metal brake.

Here we have the reinforcement tab riveted to the Melvill baffle bracket, with the bracket reinstalled on the engine.

And yet another lower view of it.  Another task, of a myriad left to do, completed.

I then mounted the top cowling to capture all the tasks I need to finish on that, and take a hard look at the final exhaust pipes configuration.  Assessing my exhaust pipes once again, I’m still convinced that these are the wrong pipes for my setup: a case where I (the layman) am correct, and the vendor is plain wrong.  Which at this point means nothing now other than working the problems out.

After analyzing the exit positioning of all the exhaust pipes, I came to the painful conclusion that I’m going to have to once again cut the left outboard pipe to angle it both inboard and down a hair —so that it nestles in very close to the inboard pipe in its position below.

The right side exhaust pipes will be workable, with the only drawback being the position of the aft final bend in the pipe… which happens to be right where I need to trim them. The cut will either have to be a bit further in than I want (~2″ inside the cowling), or I’ll have to live with the aft pipe openings pointing outboard much more than desired.

Pressing forward…