Oil cooler air controller

Recently, on the RV list, there has been a lot of conversation about oil cooler controls.  It is generally accepted that it would be great to be able to control the amount of cooling air that enters the oil cooler.  The supply needs to be controlled in front of the oil cooler to deep it away from the ambient air in the cold air part of the cowling.  I was fitting my cowling and working on the baffling at the time that this topic hit it's peek.  I decided to design and fit an oil cooler plenum that would incorporate a butterfly mechanism that would be cockpit controlled. 

All materials will be listed in a few days.  All metal is .040 6063T3.  The buterfly is .063 and the shaft is stainless.  The bearings are generic bronze from Ace Hardware as well as the stainless shaft. 

                     
Layout your idea on graph paper and use as template.                Make paper model to plan materials layot and to see project

           
Install temporarily and check fit                                Install bottom cowl and check

I will be adding more text in the next few days.  You can make one of these for your RV in about a day. This is my method of fabricating a plenum.  It will probably go through a few modification prior to flight.... that is a given isn't it.... See you flying!!!
Dave Aronson
RV4 N504RV

Another very nice method of fabricating an oil cooler air controlling mechanism can be found at:  

  http://bmnellis.com/BuilderIdeas/paul_golias_ideas.htm#OilCoolerDoor

UPDATE TO OIL COOLER PLENUM

PLENUM UPDATE  02/02.

After fiddling with the design I updated the pictures to show how it has matured.  The plenum has been beefed with 2024 T3 of .080 thickness.  The baffle was also reinforced with .090 2024T3 and the plenum mounting flange was beefed with .061 angle stock.  The mechanism works real smooth and I hope it controls the oil cooling as well as I want.  In the garage it works just fine. 

               If you have some pictures of your oil cooler design on the web, let me know the URL and we can link it.

Another very nice method of fabricating an oil cooler air controlling mechanism can be found at:  

  http://bmnellis.com/BuilderIdeas/paul_golias_ideas.htm#OilCoolerDoor

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