Exhaust Work

The last weekend was insanely hot here in Tucson. We had around 107F on both days and with the unusually low temps in the lower 90s previously, this was literally a bit overwhelming - at least for working outside.
That's my standard excuse for not getting a lot done in a summer month but then there were so many little things to catch up with at this point in the build that it is somewhat hard to show something for the time invested.

One of the little things was to browse through all previous sections in the manual and find the left out steps - mostly related to safety and that sorts of things - and to mark them in a way that would allow to quickly find them again and tick them off. Some of the work will have to wait until I can fully set up the fuselage for final rigging which won't happen until I moved the build to a hangar, so the markings will come in handy then.
Then I wanted to finish up the lower area of the engine installation so I can eventually install the cowling and leave it on (until certification, that is).
One of the steps involved was trimming off the exhaust pipe to a more usable length that would not interfere so much with the installation of the lower cowl. I had marked a length of 3" before when I had the cowl on and now the pipe cutter had arrived to get a clean cut. It wasn't that easy though as I refused to remove the exhaust another time to be able to fully spin the pipe cutter around and so I ended up with a short stretch of metal that still had to get sawed off.

I still managed to get a nice smooth edge around the cut line.

Then I installed the oil cooler and was pleased to find the critical left oil line to possibly be long enough to allow the cooler to connect to its somewhat moved forward position. I know, now that I expressed this hope, that the hose will be just a millimeter too short and require full replacement. Does this bother me at all? No, not a least little bit! It's what you get used to in more than 3 years of doing this.

After this I decided to give the oil cooler opening in the cowl a last little touch up. After all, the plan is to leave the cowl in place for a while, which means it should really be done at that point.
It turned out that the upper lip of the opening was a bit rough and needed some filling with micro-ballons and epoxy. The pot life went down from 30 minutes in winter to a bit less than 5 minutes in 107F. Enough for the small filling job and actually helpful in curing it quickly.

Catching up with leftovers also meant to finally drill the drain holes in the cowling duct. With my modification this turned out to be a bit more challenging than what it would have been with the unmodified duct but I was still able to do a good job.

The side drain hole was easy as it had not modification.

While the epoxy was curing (no chance to sand on the same day despite the heat) I was watching the surrounding wildlife in its attempt to get a relief from the high temps.

We keep those spots watered daily so the jacks, bunnies and quails are getting at least a slight cooling when they wait there for dusk. 

A day later, I sanded the upper lip of the air intake and noticed happily that that appeared to give it that desired perfectly smooth entry I was looking for.

Now, filling the springs on the exhaust with RTV and fitting the oil cooler to the cowl are the next steps but I will wait until it is a little cooler...