My wording is a bit off, it should have said "flywheel " iso counterweight, an engine needs this too "smoothen the 4-strokes, when converting a car engine the mass of the standard fitted flywheel at the end of the crankshaft is often removed to save on weight because it is replaced by the weight of the prop, so if you want to run the engine without prop maybe ask Valley if that's ok.
Greetings
Ah, now I understand.
The flywheel was definitely left on, and the Diehl case on the back hooks the flywheel to the generator and the starter. Because there's no prop, though, I'll have to limit the amount of time I run it as there's no active air going over the engine to cool it.
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
Shameless bump - with Mom for a visit, no real work got done on the plane. Planning on heading up tomorrow to work on the cowl and the static/pitot system.
And, as a reward for clicking on this thread...
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
That is all I needed this Saturday morning
Originally Posted by Frank Giger
Shameless bump - with Mom for a visit, no real work got done on the plane. Planning on heading up tomorrow to work on the cowl and the static/pitot system.
And, as a reward for clicking on this thread...
Quite a number of things irritating me at the hanger!
First, I brought some fuel and a very nice, large fire extinguisher with me. Pell City has a gas station that sells ethanol free High Test, so I put five gallons in a nice metal fuel can and brought it out with me.
The good news - two gallons in and no leaks in any of my fuel connections, and the drain from the sump was clean!
The bad news - my float rod is too long on my cap. I figured out that though I didn't mean to, I put it down into the sump area. Easy fix.
The other bad news is that one of several things is going on with my battery. Either:
A) I never brought it to a full charge, and hopefully the "reconditioning" feature of my charger and time spent getting some fresh electrons will fix it.
B) It's a bad battery (even though it's new).
C) It's just not enough battery. On Valley's advice I grabbed a series seven motorcycle battery, one advertising great cranking amps.
D) I've got a sneak circuit somewhere grounding the battery in the wrong way.
Flip the master, let the pump run some to build up fuel pressure, and press start. The engine turns over twice and then it's click-click-click. My little battery charger would run some and when I got decent voltage I'd try again with the same result.
Tantalizing and frustrating in the extreme is that the engine caught but didn't start - one more turn, dammit!
I'll bring starter cables next time and just jump the damned thing off from my truck if the battery isn't in good enough form. I need to hear the engine run!
I'm struggling with the cowl.
Yesterday I put in one side of the strip that connects the bowl with the sheeting that hooks to the fuselage.
My first attempt was a friggin' disaster! I had started the strip too far down into the bowl, and though I thought I was straight the piece wound up in a sort of angle, coming up to where the far end was about a 35 degree angle to the bowl!
So all the rivets get drilled out and I tried again. First I rolled the transition piece to let it lay inside the curve of the bowl (I didn't do that at first), and tacked the first rivet in on one side, lined it up evenly at one inch depth rather than the two I had before, clamped the end, and put a rivet there to hold it.
Then I started around using the line of rivet holes (about three inches apart) furthest from the edge, keeping the measure marks on the edge. Much, much better.
The upper row (closest to the edge) went in okay, but I still wound up with some minor buckling between some of the rivets. I'm beginning to suspect the bowl itself is flared outward at the edge slightly (and it's a little beat up from the last three years of being moved around). I may just apply a little rubber mallet to them to see if I can get some relief.
The next problem is that I need 14 inches from the edge of the bowl to the fuselage. My sheeting is 12 inches. I've the idea of running a two inch strip between bowl and sheeting (my transition strip is six inches wide) to fill the gap. If I can't make it work I guess I'll just bite the bullet and buy sheeting.
Any thoughts?
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
Buy the correct width sheeting and find a sheet metal roller and roll it to the right diameter before you start drilling holes. Go over your wiring and make sure you don't have some kind of dead short. Test the battery with a load tester. I had one on my car that would show 13 volts on a meter but when load tested failed in a couple seconds. Let it sit for a couple minutes and would show 13 volts again and fail the load test. Don
Of all the dippy....
So I spent a couple hours checking all the cables three or four times without any love. Finally I just threw up my hands and went to the parts store and bought a new battery, figuring that it was the only thing that could be screwing things up.
Thirty minutes and a hundred bucks later the new series 12 motorcycle battery was installed.
She cranked on the first turn!
A couple issues came up immediately:
First a minor leak at one of the fittings to the oil cooler - easy fix.
Second, none of my gauges - excepting my volt meter - are working. I'll start trouble shooting them some other time, as I'm whipped from bending into the airplane and getting frustrated.
The oil temp and pressure gauges wiggle when the master is first turned on, but I think they're not getting enough juice. We daisy chained the power connector to connector, with the first stop being the volt meter.
I'm going to move the incoming hot line to other gauges to see if that's the issue. Otherwise I'll beg Rusty (who helped run the wiring) to come out and ungefuch the system.
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
Turns out the ground to my gauges isn't doing its job! Somewhat sorted out, but I need to re-do them.
Ran the tubing for the pitot tube through the lower wing using a wire snake for drains. The hole in the back of my altimeter isn't threaded, though, so I'll have to come up with something to put the static line into it.
One of my fuel fittings was weeping a little, so I tightened it up (it was a little loose!).
And brought home the new battery so I can build a box for it.
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
Something I never heard you mention was Amp Hour ( AH ) when you talk about your Battery...
Mine... Needs minimum 18ah ....
I look for "SIZE" from that point...
What's the ah on your new battery ?
.
Gotta Fly...
JAM
Not a clue...I'll have to check.
I just went with a battery that Valley Engineering recommended and then went up one.
The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.
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