Nose Ring Installation

Step 5

        Now comes the part where you have to get things perfect. Use a GOOD center locater such as the inexpensive "Dead Center Hole Locater" from Great Planes to mark the center of the holes you drilled in the front spacers onto the rear spacers. Now use a bit just big enough for the SHAFT of the bolt to go through and drill the rear spacers (only). Leave that bit chucked up, you need it one more time. At this stage you can push the bolts into the front spacers so that the heads are recessed beneath the nose of the plane behind the spinner. The heads stop against the front face of the rear spacers. All that's left is fitting the actual nose ring.

Re-install the engine (AND the nose ring plate! Make sure that the o-ring side is facing forward.) and align it to perfection. The easiest way to do that is to use a thin ply spacer cut to match your spinner backplate, with slots or cutouts in it that allow you to access the holes you have drilled. Slip this over the crankshaft and tighten it down with spacers and the prop nut, then position and tack glue it in place.

Now hold the nose ring and laminate assembly firmly in the desired position and drill one hole with the bit you left in the drill from the last step. Carefully feed the bit through the hole you drilled in the rear ply spacer and - holding the drill perpendicular to the hole - drill through the laminate that you glued the nose ring into. Push a long bolt through this hole from the back side and temporarily snug it down to hold the nose ring assembly in place. Re-check the alignment of everything, then drill the hole in the other side of the assembly.
Remove the engine and nose ring assembly. Put blind nuts on the back side of the balsa/glass laminate in the holes you just drilled, and spot some slow CA on them as you tighten them into the wood.

Guess what? You're done!  Slip the nose ring assembly on the engine, put the engine back in the mount, stick the bolts in from the front and snug them up.

You now have a nose ring that is perfectly aligned, that can be installed and removed without having to get inside the engine compartment. Just pop the spinner off and there are the bolts. You can't remove it without removing the engine - but then why would you? I've never had to do any sort of maintenance on this nose ring assembly. The final assembly is shown in photo 5. All that's left in this case is some cosmetic filling on the left side of the nose where the kit maker knocked out a bit more glass than needed, then it's ready to run!

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