ORIGINAL: ahhfoo
I was wondering if anyone had any details on a reference to marks supposedly made for placement of the cowl?? On page 14 of the manual, under the "install the cowl" section, it says to "slide the cowl to the marks made earlier"... I made no marks, Seagull made no marks and I find nothing in the instructions that says to mark it...
For those who have no yet bought theirs yet, it is a really nice ARF kit that looks to be very good quality with a less than good manual... I have sorted through most of it but this one problem mentioned above... That and the fact that with the engine mounted as instructed (112 mm from firewall), no cowl alignment really looks like it will end in a correct alignment... It looks right now as if it would be properly aligned if the engine were slide a bit back (maybe 100 mm from firewall instead) but for now I will trust that it can be done as stated in the instructions...
A buddy and I powered out to finish the Decathlon last week.
Like you, I was mystified about the marks for cowl placement. There were no steps that included that anywhere in the manual.
To your second comment... I went with 112mm from the firewall and found that it seemed to be the right distance to allow for breathing under the back end of the cowl (in relation to the step in the firewall there). However, the lineup with the propshaft was quite a bit off, as delivered (and as you suspect), and made for a crooked looking cowl. So, I made a compromise of trimming a little of the propshaft hole on the starboard/passenger side, and going with a little offset in the cowl direction (also to the starboard/passenger side). At this point, you wouldn't notice unless I pointed it out to you. Perhaps others have a better way, but this worked for me.
Jim