I've knocked off a bunch of smaller items on the big To Do list over the last 10 days. I also spent hours poring over catalogs figuring out where to order a bunch of hardware items I need. No one place has everything I need, so it is a real trick to figure out how to split up the orders to minimize the total cost, including shipping.

I also spent some time to install the beautiful custom heater muff that Rick Robbins made me. The muff is 7" long, and has the inlet and outlet on opposite sides. It will fit on the front left exhaust, just below the cylinder.

I had to remove the front baffle floor to install the flange for the air inlet to the muff.

While I had it off, I realized that this was the best time to modify the parts of the baffle that wrap around the cylinders on the bottom. Several people with flying RVs have recommended that flanges on the parts that wrap around the cylinders be reinforced to ensure that the safety wire that pulls the front and rear ones together does not cut through the aluminum. I riveted some small doublers onto those flanges. I'll put a MD42BS monel body pop rivet in each flange and knock out the mandrel. The monel will provide a tough "grommet" to run the safety wire through to ensure it doesn't cut through the aluminum. I'll put some zinc chromate on the rivets to ensure I don't get any dissimilar-metal corrosion between the aluminum and the monel.

I wish I had learned about the desirability of modifying the flanges on the baffle wrap-arounds before I had installed the baffles on the engine. The right side baffles weren't too much trouble to remove, but the left side will be much more work. I'll have to remove the air inlet snorkel on the front, and oil cooler door on the rear.