Mark L and all, The easiest and cleanest setup I have seen and used is to braze a large "set Screw" onto the end of the hinge pin and then form threads in the front lip of your cowl to retain the pin. I picked up a couple of 1/4-20 set screws at the local hardware store. Drilled a hole in the bottom end of the set screw too fit the hinge pin then brazed them to the forward end of the hinge pins. With the cowls off, I slid the hinge pins into one half of the cowl and applied flox around the set screw to form female threads on the cowl (apply release to the set screws first) I then glassed over the flox to strengthen the bond to the cowl. Once the flox is cured just use your Allen key to remove the set screws with pins attached.
I have seen this done on quite a few aircraft. One is a Glasair III 540 Turbo engine and over 2000 hours. The pins have never moved in the cowl. All you see is a small hole in the forward lip of the cowl and the set screw just flush with the finished surface. A lot easier than crawling under the panel to remove the cowl pins. "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their eams." -Eleanor Roosevelt Shane Daly Calgary, Canada ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Langford" <[email protected]> To: "KRnet" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 8:29 AM Subject: Re: KR> Cowling joints > I have a similar setup, but I was worried about the same thing, the prop. > That's exactly what happened to Lionheart on it's first flight, and it was a > $14,000 prop that got trashed. For that reason, I've made my hinge pins > insert from the fuselage end, rather than the prop end. I haven't done it > yet, but I'm going to weld a little washer to the end of the pin (flat) and > put a screw through it to retain the pin. That washer will also serve as > the "grip" to pull it out with. > > Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama
