Drilled engine mount & more wiring
I drilled the engine mount to the firewall. I went through two good 3/8″ drill bits. My process was: first I drilled the top right hole where where the firewall was pre-punched. I put a bolt in that hole and positioned the top left hole as close as possible to the pre-punched hole in the firewall. I held the engine mount at the correct position for the second hole primarily with a small block of wood wedged between the bottom tube and the bottom firewall flange. I also used some duct tape to hold it still. After the second top hole was drilled, I examined the much talked about space between the center two mount points and the firewall. I concluded that mine would not require any shims as the space was just a little over 1/16″ and I could just about deflect the whole mount that much by hand just by pushing on it. So I drilled the center mount holes next since once they were pulled up against the firewall, the two outer bottom holes would be deflected outboard just a hair. There is a definite assembly sequence here: Bolts in the top holes, then the bottom center holes, then the bottom outboard holes. I’m quite happy with how this went except for the fact that drilling six holes that large (3/8″) in steel with an electric drill is a real pain.
The reason I mounted the engine mount was to see if I could use it as an anchor point for the #6 wire that I ran from the battery contactor to the main buss. Sure enough, I’ll secure it to the lower engine mount tube. This is not final assembly of the engine mount just yet. It came right back off in the interest of space since I’ve been working on wiring just behind the firewall quite a bit. I’m still spending a lot of time just pulling and terminating wires. Most of the basic ship’s power wire is in place.
