These things happen so I thought momentarily about trying to weld it up or something then just imagined myself flying over a forest somewhere and thinking about it, I knew it just wasn't going to roll, so I made my mind up and bought a different oil cooler and mounted it differently.
I had a go of mounting the cooler right up front but it didn't feel right and I also had issues of where I was going to put the radiator so I chose to go in the conventional spot of under the engine. It probably would have worked well there but after I drilled through it that option was ultimately gone anyway. I didn't want to shell out another $700 us for the same cooler so I bought one from my local shop for $140 and set about installing that.
I actually, at this time, still didn't realize I had stuffed the core and had a go at fitting it underneath. It was all connected up in the end and when we went to go and bleed the oil system with compressed air we found the hole... I had a little sulk, actually I had a big sulk, moped around for a fair while but some other guys helping me that day got me out of the sink hole. We bypassed the cooler and actually had a first engine run that day. I had forgotten all about the hole when I heard the engine fire up. We didn't run it long with no cooler but at least we proved out the engine.
Sonex Rotax 912 first start
The cooler ultimately stayed in this basic position but I used a different core which was this one .
I set about making a foam plug so I could make a fiberglass duct. I actually had to modify this original duct about 5 times. I think it's pretty right now but when I do the flight testing I will monitor the temps and decide. Ground running so far indicate it will be fine. In fact it may be too cool in flight so we'll see.
I used hydraulic AN fittings basically due to their strength and the fact that I had no worries about weight up the front. It fact I welcomed it somewhat. I didn't want to end up with a tail heavy plane and hopefully I won't either.
No comments:
Post a Comment