This blog is my ramblings about building and flying my airplanes. Its purpose is to give me some kind of documentation of my build process but in truth its only here so I don't have to keep answering the question...what are you working on now? ;-)
This past weekend I began the process of tearing the O-540 engine I bought down. From my inexperienced perspective it looks like this engine is in great shape.
left side of the engine. I am going to have to replace at least one of these drain back tubes.
right side of engine. Another drainback tube is going to have to be replaced on this side
A quick pic of the accessory case before I started pulling it all apart
Cylinders removed. Pistons look pretty normal to me. No hotspots on the valves in the cylinders either. Visually it looks like this engine could have gone another 2000 hours!
A few of the piston pins had some buildup on them that required me to use the piston pin removal tool. You can see it attached to #5.
Another view of the piston pin removal tool.
A few shots of the cam, cam followers and crankshaft follow....
Camshaft has no spalling I can see and the case looks great from my inexperience perspective.
Crankshaft looks good in there!
Not sure what it takes to get this darn oil pressure adjustment cover off but it takes more than I have currently.
Huge pile of parts. Oh, and one coffee cup. :-)
Piston on the left is after cleaning it up, the one on the right still has all the crusting on it.
I can't believe how big these piston pins are! They weigh a pound or two and are solid steel. I took this picture to try and give some perspective.
All thats left is the block with its internals (Crankshaft, Camshaft, cam followers, lifters). I put the desiccant material under the plastic bag and then wrapped it up to prevent any dust and debris from getting inside while I wait to send it out for inspection.
Last weekend I flew to the Alvord desert in south east Oregon with Harry, Jeff, Chad, Becca, and about 20 other FATPNW people. We met up with Scott and his wife in Burns during fuel up and flew into the desert in a group of 5 airplanes. I have a video that I am going to have to figure out how to publish here some day.... EDIT... Here is the video..
The pin marks the spot on the map where the Alvord desert is. Technically its a dry lake bed and in Google maps it shows it as a lake but as you can see from the pictures below its far from a lake this time of year.
Stopping for fuel in Burns Oregon
Jeff doing his pre flight run up at Burns
Harry doing his preflight run up at Burns
As usual Jeff got a great shot of me as I taxied over to the camping area after landing
Stepping out of the airplane at the desert
Pano of the airplanes that had arrived before us
Here we are and look at the clouds on the horizon
Early morning picture of the camp site
Jeff flying his drone. Those "glasses" on his head allow him to see what the drone is doing through a camera on the drone itself. Very cool.
Oh yea, I had to throw this one in there but its actually a Harry special Pina Colada that we indulged in the day after we arrived.
Well another successful Oshkosh trip is in the books. This year we were suppose to be a group of at least 4 airplanes but unfortunately we ended up with just Jeff and I as Harry got called to work the week and Chad had to bail due to work related activities earlier in the month. Regardless Jeff and I had a great time and here is a brief recount of the trip.
We had planned on a Thursday afternoon departure with a stop in Montana for the evening. The weather looked pretty good during the week leading up to Thursday. On thursday itself the weather started to take a bit of a turn and it looked like we might be trapped behind some convective stuff if we departed as planned. Since we were all off of work early we made the call to depart early and it turns out that was a good idea.
Here is a video I took and edited of the arrival into Oshkosh...
Packed up and ready to go.
Obligatory selfie with Martin as we cruised at about 15,500' above sea level.
Tied down in Townsend Montana for the night.
We had a relatively uneventful flight to Townsend Montana where we were treated to a well deserved night of train horns and high temperatures at the Mustang Motel. What a treat to listen to the trains drift by about every 15 minutes during the night with their air horns blowing off and on. To add to the ambiance the hotel owner turned the central air conditioning off at about 11pm so we got to sweat as the trains serenaded us.
Ah yes...the mustang motel.
After a very long night we decided to launch for Oshkosh. Next stop, North Dakota. It wasn't until we were on the east side of Montana that we decided to go the north route and land near Fargo. Enroute we passed over Dickinson ND where my sister lives but thunderstorms and rain prevented them from seeing me wave.
Some cloud formations and rain as we passed Dickinson, ND.
This is what the central plains states look like....flat.
Filling up in North Dakota.
After filling up with fuel we launched for Oshkosh. It was a nice flight and as with the previous two legs we had a wonderful tail wind that pushed us along nicely. We arrived in the early afternoon, got a nice third row parking spot and set up camp for the week.
A panorama of our camp site.
A few sites to be seen at Oshkosh but only a few pictures...
Yep, we made it....
A few other planes made it...
A nice sunset
And a nice sunrise...
Oh, and a picture of a formation of warbirds flying over head as I laid under the wing of my airplane (to avoid the sun).
And a formation of fighters doing a bomber escort as part of the airshow.
Obviously there was a ton more to see and do but that's exactly what I was doing...seeing and doing...not taking pictures so if you want to see more....come to the Oshkosh and see for yourself!
