This has been a very difficult month to say the least. On December 4th our daughter,
Kerri, had major oral surgery. The
procedures she underwent were performed by and ENT Dr. and an oral surgeon. They
fixed a deviated septum, performed a UPP (remove the uvula and remove a portion
of the soft pallet, cut a small window in her chin and pulled her tongue
forward 4 mm and cut and removed a wedge out of her tongue and stitched it back
together. She was in the Shock Trauma
ICU for 10 days and in Adult ICU for 3-more days. I spent every afternoon and evening visiting
her. She is now home and well on the
road to recovery. This afternoon I was
able to work on the airplane again.
It is pretty cold outside, but the sun was shining so I set up on
the driveway. Last week I received and
inventoried the landing gear SB modification kit from Vans. I will begin making the necessary mods
soon.
Today I worked on the engine cooling shroud. I had marked the shroud previously so I
started to remove the excess fiberglass to the scribe lines. After removing the bulk of the material I slipped
it in place on the engine. I used my
Dremel tool and a cutting disc to cut the fiberglass. The fit was pretty good, but it could be
better. I used the Dremel tool with a
small sanding drum to remove the fiberglass material to the scribe lines. I put it back on the engine and the fit was
considerably better, but not good enough.
I used a Sharpie to mark some places that needed additional work. After cutting out some material to clear the
cylinder fins on one end and removing a small section from the rear of the
shroud it fits pretty good.
I also drilled a ¾" hole for the flexible tube that will
provide cooling to the rectifier. I also
used a Sharpie and a pencil to mark the top of the engine for the RTV that will
be used to install the shroud.
