Rob,
Is 1/4 inch enough? It depends. In my case it wasn't, but depending on the
vintage of your kit, and what options you have, the height of the top of
the instrument panel etc. it may be OK.

You need to have the canopy frame finished with the glass installed. I
would also suggest that you bond the instrument panel in place

I replaced the original four bar linkage in my 1990 kit with the forward
hinging canopy. This involves removing material from the front underside of
the canopy frame and adding carbon fibre layups that results in a thicker
frame, right where it closes over the front of the glare shield. I attached
foam strips along the lower side of the aft end of the deck. It's about 1/4
inches thick at the center, thickening to nearly 1/2 inch where it ends
above the gas strut brackets aat the sides. This gives an absolute minimum
clearance between the thickened canopy frame and the glare shield. It's
more critical at the sides than in the center in my case. a lot of this is
due to the carbon fibre stiffening.

There's really no reason why you shouldn't increase the thickness of the
foam at the front to increase clearance. I didn't because I didn't
anticipate problems at the front when I orginally built everything. I had
already fitted the aft of the glare shield to the top of the instrument
panel and wanted to minimize the alterations to hole positions etc.

I didn't use brackets at the front and instead drilled countersunk holes
through the aft joggle of the deck and attached nutplates to the glare
shield. I attached the glare shield to the panel using machine screws,
nutplates on the flange of the instrument paned and tinneman washers on the
glare shield. This helps get it snug around the sides and stops the gas
struts touching the sides of the glare shield when you open and close the
canopy.

Regards, Chris.


> [Original Message]
> From: Marvin Kaye <marv@lancaironline.net>
> Date: 6/1/2006 7:02:06 PM
> Subject: Glare Shield Gap -- LNC2
>
> Posted for RWolf99@aol.com:
>
> I'm about to glue a set of 90-degree flanges to my header tank to capture
the
> front edge of my glareshield.  I'd appreciate suggestions as to how much
room
> to leave between the top of the flange and the bottom of the aft lip of
the
> header tank -- this is the gap into which the glare shield gets shoved.
Of
> course, if I had an upholstered glare shield, I'd know the answer.  But I
> don't.  I just have a fiberglass dust cover from Lancair.
>  
> I was planning on leaving a 1/4 inch gap.  Does this sound about right?
>  
> Thanks in advance.
>  
>   - Rob Wolf
>   LNC2
>   Parker Colorado