More Baffle Work

With the cowl mostly done, we could finish the baffle.  All the aluminum pieces are fit to the engine, so now the fun part: getting a 3/8″ to 1/2″ gap between the top of the baffle and the underside of the top cowl.  This involves many, many iterations of putting the cowl on, checking the clearance all around, marking areas, cutting, checking again.  As you can imagine, there’s a lot to check, and with the cowl on, it’s not always the easiest to see.  To help out, Kelly put paperclips all over the baffle.  That way, when we put the cowl on, it would push down the paperclips.  When we took the cowl off, we could then see exactly how far down it went.

We ended up having to cut quite a bit off to get the fit right.  When we were done, I sanded the edges smooth and was very thankful to be done with this part.

The last real step in the baffle is to attach a rubber material to the top.  This closes the gap between the top of the baffles and the top cowl.  The rubber has to be curved in, so the high pressure above the engine doesn’t push the rubber out and flap against the top cowl.  Kelly pretty much did this herself.

Done!