Print
Hits: 2490

I took all of Monday, plus Tuesday afternoon off from work. The temperature plummeted on Wednesday, and the rest of the week was too cold to attempt any hangar work.

I ran into a problem with the prop governor cable bracket, as described by other builders here. I added a spacer between the PCU5000X prop governor and the mounting bracket, then attached the rod end on the face of the control arm that is furtherest away from the prop governor. That worked, but it isn’t the perfect solution, as it means the rod end is not very well aligned with the axis of the prop control cable. I need to take another look at this the next time I’m at the hangar. I need to sort this out fairly quickly, as the access to that area will be much worse once I get the rest of the stuff reconnected back there.

I got the engine back on the engine mount on Monday, and made a good start on the various connections between the engine and airframe. As I expected, the change in the inverted oil system pickup meant that the original oil hose is too short. I ordered a new section of hose, and it arrived on Friday.


I discovered two cracks in the baffles near where the oil cooler attaches. That is a common problem, and I had reinforced that area, but now that I look at things with fresh eyes I can see that all I didn’t account for where the oil cooler loads had to pass to get to the engine.

One of the cracks (shown here) is at the aft end of the side baffle wall, where the flange bends. I’ll cut off the flange, and rivet on a piece of angle and a doubler.

The other crack is on the flange where the plenum top attaches to the rear baffle wall, and I haven’t yet figured out the best repair. I had thought that the plenum top would serve as a reinforcement for the rear baffle top, but I obviously didn’t properly size the mounting flange to carry the loads. I’m not sure whether to add a brace between the baffle side and rear, or to beef up the plenum top mounting flanges, or to do both.