So to be completely honest, I was getting so sick of seeing my tail sitting on the bench all the time that I had to make the time to fit it to the Aeroplane. I had been holding off for a number of reasons, mainly paintwork and so on. Anyway, the tail is now on. The elevator was a straight forward affair to fit and the placement was critical for the up and down travel required... also not to mention critical for where the bolts go through the intended ally angle. This was a factor I found out thankfully before I drilled the holes in the wrong spot, as I was about to. Luckily fate saved me from an awful mistake and I picked it up before I drilled the wrong spot. I thought I had the plans read correctly, but I guess not. Anyway it was a happy ending and fit well. The Vertical stab was another mission. I must have had that on and off for trimming and so on more times than I can remember. Finally, when I was happy with it, I secured it permanently. I had found also that the plans for bolting the spars together bottomed out on the threads, so shorter bolts were needed. These bolts were the ones I had to wait for in the previous post some time back.
Fitting the tail wheel was another nice milestone. That all came out well. The rudder cables are now installed and attached to the pedals. I followed the Sonex plans to the letter regarding the rudder cables but I can't help but feel the gap of 3/8 inch between full deflection of the rudder and the gap between the firewall and the pedal just doesn't seem enough. It does work okay and it's not hitting the firewall but it certainly doesn't allow for any potential stretch of the cable. Perhaps this may not happen. Who knows. I guess Sonex just want you to be able to stretch your legs out as much as possible. If I do need to change it, it is no big deal really, as I will just need to make new cable attach brackets on the pedals.
So anyway as per the picture below I thought I would give my other plane one last Hurrah to try to get it flying and reliable. So for the 6th time ,,,,, out came the Aerovee ( 58 hours total time) . I am getting very experienced at working on these Aerovees and to be honest I am not happy about it. I pulled it out this time to repair an oil leak and freshen it up. The oil was really making a big mess of the cowling after each flight and it was just getting beyond a joke.
I pulled the complete engine down and found a hair line crack in the engine crank case. Besides this really pissing me off, at least I had found the reason for my oil leaking. I had priced up a new case and Sonex offered me a reasonable deal on one but I am never going to change this case until the engine is reliable. I know this makes no sense as clearly I should have replaced the case but I was just about to carry out a Rotax engine conversion and I am done spending money on this engine. So a Field repair was done on the case and it has been re assembled.
On a massively bright note though, and this is not to be understated, is how happy I am to have found that the bloody Camshaft for my engine was incorrect since day one. I have now swapped it out with a correct cam.
The camshaft I had in my engine that was supplied by Sonex was a Scat C-45
http://vwparts.aircooled.net/SCAT-C45-Type-1-Camshaft-1-1-or-1-25-Rockers-20006-p/20006.htm
You can read the specs on this page if you want, but needless to say it certainly isn't anything you remotely want in an Aeroplane engine.
So anyway with the new cam my engine will now idle, operate smoothly and even has a fair few more ponies, enabling me to a somewhat modest, but healthy climb rate that I should have had since day one. If Sonex weren't so good to deal with and understanding about it all I would be very shitty.
I need to get some time now to go flying and enjoy this plane of mine before I sell it. I certainly can't keep both at the rate I'm going ,,,ummmmm....
No comments:
Post a Comment