Oil Door

The oil door on my aircraft serves two purposes. The first is the obvious one of being able to enter the cowling just above the dipstick to visually inspect the oil level, the second is to remove the cowling hinge pins ( Hidden hinges hold The cowl to fuselage) and to do this I need to enable my forearm to pass through this hole to reach in for these pins. For this reason I have made my door slightly larger than the RV7 plans suggest.

This is the hardware which I purchased for my door, 2 hartwell latches and a hidden oil door hinge from onestop aviation.

 

My first attempt to use the origional cutout of the fiberglass cowling worked ok but I thought it was a bit weak and flimsy when opened.

My decision was to build a door out of aluminium. I wanted the ali to be flush with the top of the cowl, this meant that my hartwell latches did not stick up far enough to be flush with the door. I pocketed out two areas for the latches to sit in the drill press.

Next I marked and cut out the templates for the latches.

 

 

After some sanding and primer

 

Installed it works great, Some finishing work is still needed on the cowl and door intersections but you get the idea.