6.5 hours.
Within minutes of arriving at the airport this morning, I replaced the distributor block assembly and the distributor gear in my right magneto, the one that’s been sitting on the bench for a couple of weeks. It was a complete non-event. I got the new distributor block out of the box, put the timing pin in it, installed the new distributor gear, lined it up, and screwed it down. Done.
I put it back on the engine, did the buzzbox test again, and got them both lined up dead nuts at 20 degrees BTDC. Of course, the proof is in the pudding. I wheeled it outside and fired it up. It ran just fine, of course. Equal rpm drop on both mags, and nice smooth running.
The other little issue I need to work on is the prop governor. I set the arm to what it was when I got it, based on a previous photo. In that position, it doesn’t cycle the prop all the way to coarse pitch. Makes sense, the arm can only move about half way, given the cable end’s position on the quadrant. I’m going to have to drill a hole another 3/4″ up on the lever arm to get that extra throw.
After the quick runup, I shut everything down and pulled it back into the hangar to put back all the stuff I’d discombobulated during my clownish magneto debugging. Wires got wrapped, nuts and screws got torqued, and everything went back to being a proper firewall-forward configuration. This took a bit of time, but it really wasn’t too bad.
One of my goals for today was to work on the seat belts. Seat belts are pretty important. They keep you from becoming one with the instrument panel in the event of an impact incident. Mine are some nice gray Crow 5-point harnesses with a cam-lock release. Like so:
Obviously, some adjustments need to be made, but I think they’ll work pretty well with the seats. The bolt holes in the attach ends are pretty big, so to get them to work with AN4 bolts, you have to fill them with something. AN960-416 washers work pretty well, but they need some adjustment. For them to fit into the attach holes, it’s necessary to shave off some of the outer edge material. This is best done by putting a bunch of them on a bolt, chucking the bolt into a drill press, and running a file along them as they spin. Then you can press-fit them into the seat belt attach holes (if they don’t just fit), and everything’s cool. The only thing missing here is the crotch strap,, which I have to take the floor pan out to install.