The hours worked last week were a little on the light side, but I have an excuse. I again, headed up to Estes Park on the motorcycle, but this time stayed in the Elkhorn Lodge (amazingly established in 1874!) Saturday night. Yes, I kind of took the weekend off from building and it was worth it...although I did knock out a few hours Saturday morning before departing.
In other RV news, I stopped by Jim Gray's hangar (a few down from my future hangar), where my future hangar mate Bob Markert was cranking away on his RV8 fuse while Jim gave him a hand. Bob and I discussed the logistics and timing of my upcoming move to the hangar. It was great visiting with the guys...I look forward to when they are my hangar mates/neighbors.
I have agonized over where and how I was going to mount my larger 9 row oil cooler for a few months now. It was too large to fit where the 7 row is supposed to mount...on the baffle. So I was stuck with mounting to the firewall or to the engine mount like Jason Beaver did. Both of these options are quite simply a pain...and more work, you need to build plenums and route SCAT tubing...and then find a place for it. I finally said, screw it...lets make a decision and move on! I have a tendency to overthink things sometimes.
Searching VAF, I found a builder that had mounted his oil cooler on the baffle...with some modification. I emailed him (I apologize, I cant recall his name right now) and he said it worked great for him. I liked the simplicity of this.
Basically, what you need to do is cut a notch in the flange to get around the engine mount...see the pic above/below. Make sure to allow for engine movement. Not only normal engine movement, but also when pulling G's. Pretty easy modification to do.
Getting it situated to drill my bolt holes...I wanted to keep it as high as I possibly could to maximize airflow through the cooler. You can see in the pic below that I have doubled up the side piece for support...more on this below.
Cutting the access hole...like the side, I put a doubler in here for added strength. If you go this route, make sure you beef up the baffles as some guys have reported getting cracks when mounting to the baffles. Remember, you have to consider a full oil cooler while pulling 6G's. I think it will be ok if you take the necessary precautions. In fact, the new RV-14A mounts like this also...but Van's did beef up the structure similar to what I have done.
I added a riveted flange at the bottom...block off airflow and strengthen it. I will come up with something similar for the top also.
Bolted in place...looking good, I like how this is turning out. I just need to come up with a way to block off airflow to the cooler for cold weather ops. More on this later.
A couple shots from my weekend in Estes Park. My friend Jeff and his girlfriend Cat drove up for the day to meet me. We had some Colorado wine by the river, followed by dinner...awesome!
The view from my room at the lodge on Sunday morning. That lenticular cloud looked pretty sweet! Those are caused by the high level airflow or "mountain wave" coming over the Rockies. Being a Rocky Mountain pilot, you certainly know these things...most non-pilots probably have no idea. Either way, whether you know the significance of it or not...it is cool looking.
Early morning stroll through downtown Estes...before the huge crowds had arrived...very nice, and not half bad scenery don't ya think?
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