Sunday, May 27, 2018

The results are in!

Well, I put it all together and ran the heck out of the 9A this weekend and guess what... NO MORE OIL TEMPERATURE ISSUES!!!!  I am pretty excited about this.  I did a high power climb from sea level to 8000' this morning to test the new oil cooler and the hottest I could get it was 190.  If I had tried that same stunt 2 weeks ago my oil temps would have been well into the 200's. 

Very excited for two reasons, first I don't have to worry about oil temps any longer on hot days.  Second, I can now go back to work on the 10!  :-)

This is the oil cooler bolted in place.  The hoses are not yet attached because I was messing with the plastic elbows above.

Another shot of the oil cooler and shroud.

Oh yea, the 10 didn't go without a little love this week either...here are the 6 new cylinders for the engine...mmmm toys.....

On Saturday Jeff, Harry, Bob and I got a chance to fly to Mulino for lunch.  This is 3 of us staging outside of Harry's hangar.  we brought along a couple of new people (Jay and Danny) to give them a little RV time.
The remaining photo's on this page are courtesy of our passenger Jay.  :-)




I wonder when Jeff installed smoke?!?



Monday, May 21, 2018

A little 9 time

No work on the 10 this week other than ordering the cylinders and piston pins for the engine.  This week and probably the next week are dedicated to the 9A.  I mentioned working on the oil cooling system last week and this week I hope to finish that process up.  My 3D printer has been running non stop for over a week crunching out parts to me to test fit.  I think I'm about ready to lay some fiberglass and reinstall the baffles that I removed.  Here are a few pics of the process so far.

New Oil cooler sitting in the old mount location.  Notice that the support arms are about 2" too short.  

A little better picture of the oil cooler.

Not as much room under the cooler for an exit duct so I will have to rethink the heating air inlet again.
 
One of the 3D printed inlet ducts that I created as a test.  This one did not fit well so I have another one designed and on the printer that is a bit shorter and has a little different angle to the inlet ring.

Here is the new back baffle configuration.  Still a bit of work to do including a little primer and paint but this is a much better location for getting cool air for the oil cooler.

This is the outlet duct I created.  The bend on the corner was way too large so I had to redesign this one as well.  

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Las Vegas Baby

Yep, I spent a few days in Vegas this past week.  Thats nothing special until you learn that I flew my 9A down for the trip!  I rarely get to use my airplane for work related travel but at times like this its just plain fun.  No worries about what time the flight is, how long the line at security is, overhead baggage space, noisy kids/other...I could go on...

Since its been a couple of weeks since my last post I guess I have to say something about the 10 build so I will say this...I finished the bottom skins....finally.  I have prepped most of the aileron parts and its almost time to start some riveting.  No pictures of the ailerons this time since its just more of the same thing.

On a related note now that the temps are starting to rise I have to pay attention to the oil temperature on the 9A.  Well I am bound and determined to resolve that issue so I ordered a larger oil cooler (15 row).  I am also reworking the plenum to allow the cooling air to be taken from a higher/cooler point on the back baffle.  I will have pictures of that process later but I did post a picture or two of the current configuration.

This is one of the many pictures I took while riveting the bottom skins on to make sure I had properly set all rivets.

And here is the finished product.  The left wing bottom skin is riveted in place.

This is a picture of the 9A oil cooling solution.  You can see the duct that I 3D printed and will cover in fiberglass once I know its the correct dimensions.  On the upper left side of the picture you can see the 4" outlet that I clamp the 4" ducting to on the back baffle.  This is the outlet that I am moving.

Here is a picture of the inside of that same outlet.  The final location will be up and to the left.  I had to replace the entire baffle panel but you will see that soon.