5 hours.
Today was about putting things back together and getting a handle on some of the chaos. The first bit of good news is that the oil temperature probe works fine. I pulled it out of the engine and hit it with a heat gun and sure enough, it gave me a reading. So I’m not going to worry about that anymore. I secured the wires back in their bundle and i’m calling that squawk done.
I also wasn’t real happy about the weird way I had the fuel pressure sensor set up. The Adel clamp holding it was maybe a size bigger than it should have been, and this way seems more secure:
As I mentioned last time, I flipped the governor arm over and it seems to work just fine:
My biggest problem with doing it this way was where the injector line was going to go. A piece of angle solved that. Now it’s out of the way, and less likely to be heat-soaked down near the cylinder. I still haven’t safety-wired the screws yet, or put the cotter pin in the cable attach nut, But I think this is how it’ll stay.
Last week, Owen recommended tightening up the tailwheel chains. Van’s recommends a half an inch of slack, but if you ask ten different people how they like their tailwheel chains, and you’ll get at least five different answers. But my chains had an inch of slack, and if I took a link out, I’d have none. But I did take a link out of each side, and while there isn’t really any dangling slack, I can move the chains up and down by about a half an inch, and I’ll tell you, based on today’s test, it taxis just fine:
That little gap in the rudder fairing is kind of annoying. Not exactly sure what to do there, except put nutplates in there and hope for the best.
Today’s test was all about seeing how things went with the cowl on. First, I wanted to make sure I could actually get the cowl on with the flipped-over governor bracket making the cable rise a bit more than it did before. Turns out, I’ve got about 1/8″ of clearance between the cable and the top cowl, which is good enough. And from what I remember, the cowl inflates a little in flight, so that 1/8″ becomes a little more. And that’s fine. I just don’t want to have to put a clearance wart in the cowl to accommodate the cable.
But before taking it out for another test, this adjustment had to be made to the baffle material on the lower cowl. I had to cut it back a bit, because it was covering up about 6 square inches of air intake. Bad. So with this mod in place, I put the top cowl on, and pinned it down. Then I put a few of the floor panels in, and you’d be surprised how much the plane stiffens up with the reinforcing action of the panels. I ran it up, then shut down the left mag. Engine died. Started it again, repeated. OK, right mag dead. Grr. Still runs fine on one though.
So I said screw it, let’s taxi it around. The new tailwheel chain tension was much better. Now it’s more like Mickey’s Citabria, and the ground handling is nice! I took it to the end of the hangar row, turned right, went down the next row, turned right again, then went back to the barn. CHT’s never got above 210. As soon as I get this mag situation sorted out, it’s time for ground runs.
\Last time, shutting off the left Mag made a lot of popping and missing, which I attributed to timing. This time, I’m pretty sure the timing’s right, but now shutting off the right mag shuts off the engine. Now, it might have something to do with the fact that I left the pop-rivet I was using for a timing pin in the hole when I pulled the prop through, but I can’t say for sure. What I do know is that before, on the right mag, I had backfiring. Now I’ve got squat.