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After deciding to make a little repair on my nose bowl, I accidentally opened Pandora's Box and kept finding more and more and more problems with it.
One of the things I'm most curious about though, is the extensive use of a bondo-like material that coats the entire nose bowl.
Is this normal for the nose bowl to have body filler caked on all over? I thought it was unusual at first, but I've talked with two other people whose nose bowls are also covered with body filler.
Normal, yes, but not original. When rebuilding things on mine I found fiberglass and resin were used to cover the cracks. They seem to have had rough lives up there, maybe they get pushed in every now and then, and flywheel cuts into them occasionally too.
Thanks guys. Yeah, this one has an improperly installed patch at the top of the nosebowl on the inside and it's covered on the outside with a thick bulge of body filler. I'm assuming all that mess is covering a gouge from the flywheel.
It's become a huge project that just keeps growing everytime I uncover more paint. My wife says I just like to tinker, which has some truth, but I didn't know the damage and repairs were going to be this extensive when I started that first "little repair".
I'm glad to know that it didn't start out with all of that plastic body filler. I'll completely replace it someday, but this one will have to do for now.
I much prefer to make welded repairs on nose bowls. They look better and last longer than riveted repairs. Big problem is getting them clean enough to weld especially if someone already put filler all over them. They are made out of 3003, very easy to weld with the correct equipment and filler. Cleaning is the only real issue. Weld, grind out the porosity, weld, grind weld grind until you have a clean weld.
I moved my oil cooler and had a piece made to fill in the space where the oil cooler used to be. The nose bowl also had multiple dents. I used planishing hammers to work out the dents. Attached are two pictures before and after I worked out a dent. The piece of aluminum to cover the hole where the oil cooler used to sit was originally riveted in. I used the planishing hammers to close all the gaps and then had a friend of mine weld it in for me. After I smoothed out the weld, I used white Marine Tex (available at Aircraft Spruce) to fill in a little bit. I didn't have to use much. Has been on the airplane for about 350 hours and no cracks.
Did you pick up noticeable top speed when you filled the cooler hole?
I moved the oil cooler when I did the engine overhaul. At the same time I increased the HP from 150 HP to 160 HP and installed a Sutton exhaust. Yes, the performance increased, but I don’t think moving the oil cooler contributed much.