The engine has an oil cooler located just forward of the number 2 cylinder. But an optional second oil cooler is mounted in the nose of the aircraft. This adds oil cooling capacity and can also be used as a cabin heater.

The air intake, ducting and mounting for the nose oil cooler was done a while back. Now it’s time to run the tubing that will carry the oil to and from the oil cooler.

First the two lines are straightened out (they come in a coil) and then each tube is covered with a layer of heat shrink. The manual says to then insert the two tubes in the pilot side duct. Malcolm says if you do that, the two lines could come into contact and transfer heat between them. Sounds reasonable although I don’t think that you’d get that much heat transfer. Malcolm uses a pair a adel clamps that are then pinned together as spacers. I don’t have 8 adel clamps and that seemed like it would take up space in the duct. So I fabricated my own.

I put two additional layer of heat shrink at four locations along the tubing. Then I cut small strips of aluminum to act as a spacer. Rivet the tabs down and there you go:

Before the oil lines are inserted into the duct, a hole is drilled in the duct just aft of the canard bulkhead (for engine controls, antennas and brakes lines):

Another forward of the landing gear bulkhead (for antennas):

And another forward of the firewall (for brake lines). If the holes aren’t drilled first, drilling holes in the duct could damage the oil lines.