Tonight I worked on installing the heat muffs. There are two of these muffs, arranged in series, that use exhaust heat to warm air which is then directed to the cabin warm are vents. The muffs are made up of sleeves that slip over the exhaust pipes, with end caps on each end. The end caps are held in place by two rods, which are safety-wired onto the exhaust pipe. The sleeves are held onto the end caps by hose clamps.
My first problem was that I had tried to outsmart the plans by putting the sleeves onto the pipes before they were mounted to the engine. Unfortunately one of the sleeves had flipped around, and I couldn’t reposition it without taking off the exhaust pipes. This was annoying, but not too much trouble. Going back to the step-by-step instructions, I installed the end caps and then called it a night.
Meanwhile dad was busy with more sanding and filling around the top cowl air inlets, and getting the air ramps to fit just right. Once the air ramps were close enough we glassed them into position. Because the engine baffle seals are already installed, we had to carefully position the clecos holding the air ramps into position so they wouldn’t interfere with the baffle seals when we installed the top cowling. Having the top cowl in position while the glue sets around these air ramps is important to ensure nothing is pushed out of alignment. We also draped a plastic sheet over the whole engine to catch any resin drips.
