47 - Cowl Baffle (baffle rods; snorkel & air filter; ramp cones; baffle seals)

Another two weeks have passed, and I still haven't finished the cowl baffle section! Lots of little steps, many of which require fitting and refitting (e.g. snorkel).  I received the interior this week (yeah!), and look forward to installing it in the plane in a few weeks, once I finalize the avionics wiring and a few other tidbits.  Details of what was accomplished are as follows: 

- messed with the snorkel for far too long - doesn’t fit perfectly, so I will have to build up the flange using flox (edit: I just sanded a bit, since there was plenty of material); tried cutting baffle tension rods and using a die to thread the ends, but I had a crappy die and work-hardened the ends by using a dremel tool.  Contacted Ken B., who suggested a die grinder and better 6-32 die

- threaded rod ends using a better, high-speed steel 6-32 die (McMaster-Carr), and attached and tensioned the rods to the baffles

- fit, trimmed, sanded, drilled, floxed and epoxied snorkel

- cut alt air hole, drilled and floxed alt air inlet; unpacked and inventoried interior for plane!

- formed and attached ramp cones; final-installed snorkel and air filter (safety-wired snorkel to fuel servo); everything fits fairly well!

- attached baffle seals; routed top ignition wires (had to enlarge holes for the 5/16” p-mag wires); brushed on additional layer of epoxy on top cowl where baffle seals will touch

Here are two of the baffle tension rods, attached and torqued - those were a pain to install. Note that I used two metal locknuts (one as a "jam nut"), since the -06 sized nuts are really not very tight:

After a couple failed attempts at cutting the threads using a crappy die, I ordered a high-speed steel one from McMaster-Carr - what a difference a good quality die makes!  And a lot of lube ...

Here are all 4 rods, cut and bent, ready for installation:

Drilled, dimpled, and attached nutplate to alternate air inlet - note that there are 3 holes per side. I added one hole, because my inlet was made backwards, with 3 holes on the left and two on the right (needed 3 to better attach to snorkel:

Cut snorkel top with a multitool.  What's not shown here are the dozens of times I attached and reattached the snorkel and air filter holder to ensure a perfect fit (i.e., everything lines up, and no part of the snorkel touches any other part of the engine):

Snorkel floxed to air filer holder:

Hole cut for alternate air - the flanges of the air filter holder extended farther than the plans, so I had to cut part of it when cutting the hole:

Alternate air inlet, floxed to snorkel:

Oooh look - the seats!  I have all the other parts of the interior (side panels, carpets, etc), but those will be saved for a subsequent post:

Snorkel attached to air filter holder (with air filter), and ramp cones were formed:

Snorkel attached (another view) - the 4 bolts attaching the snorkel to the fuel servo were safety-wired (hard to see here):

Baffle seals attached to baffles:

Another view: