Estes Apollo Little Joe II Build, Part 23, Engine Mount Gluing

If you have added the fin spar reinforcements you should do some dry fitting before gluing in the engine mount.
The lower centering ring will sit slightly higher and butt up against the bottom flat of the fin spars.
A dry fit also lets you visually set the spars looking through the nozzle holes.
The fin spars were glued to the engine mount tube and to the inside of the body tube cut outs.
When you get the mount in place, draw some pencil alignment lines on the inside tube wall and lower ring. Reference the rear view in the instructions for nozzle placement in relationship to the tunnels M and N.

I'm not gluing the lower ring on so it can be flown without the nozzles in place.
Two wraps of masking tape kept the loose ring at the 1/2" mark.

Glue the engine mount in place with the lower ring on the engine mount tube. You can remove the tape and lower ring after the glue dries on the upper ring.


The instructions say to apply glue at 2 1/2" from the end of the tube. I drew a pencil line at 2 1/2".
TIP: Gotcha - The upper ring ends up about 3/4" higher than the 2 1/2" glue ring. I would apply the glue higher at 3" in the tube.

A Q-tip taped to a dowel was used to smooth out the glue ring on both sides of the upper ring.