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Condition Inspection at 900 hrs - rambling

A5555

Well Known Member
I don't like unscheduled maintenance but I don't mind scheduled maintenance. Especially if you have nice weather and we have had a very nice cool Spring in Ohio. I schedule my condition inspection in May each year. If I thought I was going to have some issues I would probably schedule it earlier in the year.

Compression check:
1) 74 (last year 70)
2) 75 (last year 70)
3) 75 (last year 78)
4) 76 (last year 78)

the only thing I did differently this year was to use cowl inlet air dams all through the Winter to get my engine temps up. I don't know if this helped even the compressions or if it was something else.

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this year I focused on locating any wear issues because I'm at 900 hrs. I was pleasantly surprised to find essentially no wear on some of the areas that are prone to wear so I thought I would post some photos. the three areas I looked at in detail were the rudder cable lever attachments, the carb heat area, exhaust hangers.

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rudder cable attachments. hole measured .190 inch in both the x and y planes. I believe if you keep these lubed (however you do it) you can keep these holes in really good shape.

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carb heat arrangement. no wear in 900 hrs. no adjustment ever made since new. set it and forget it. carb heat is important. it can save your life. do I use it much, nope. have I really needed it in the past, yes.

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exhaust hangers. never touched since new. I keep the exhaust balls (flex joint) lubed with mouse milk when I have the cowls off and make sure they are free and float around. double clamped with a slight flare on the tube ends. I think I got this slight flare idea from Sam. It works.

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Condition inspection

oil change, I needed to clean up after this oil change. I used one paper towel. I did make a bigger mess when I checked the lower oil pump screen.

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some AT-205 on the baffle seals made them flexible again. no need to change them. I also used AT-205 on the inlet rubber connectors. we will see if this helps reduce some cracking at the edges. I swear I could see the crack close. I think you want to be careful with this stuff. if you use it too often the rubber may become too soft.

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Condition inspection

fuel screens / filters..... I have four of them. after checking these multiple times over the years and not finding anything significant and this year was the same, nothing. I thought I would try an alternate approach using fuel flow at the carb criteria. In the future I will only remove and inspect the carb screen and use the electric fuel pump to discharge fuel into a container and measure the flow. if the flow is not changed from a KNOWN clean condition then I will not disassemble any other filters as that just adds opportunity for errors to occur. I measured this 8 yrs ago and found my pump supplies 24 gal per hour. this year I measured and found it supplied 24.5 gal per hour. I recorded the fuel weight on the carb for reference next year. I am more interested in actual fuel flow rather than a visual inspection of each screen. keep sumping the fuel tanks to get the crud out of the system early.

fuel filter screens:
1) fuel tank pick up screen
2) 74 micron screen in the tunnel before the fuel pump
3) gascolator in the usual place
4) carb screen (cleaned with throttle body cleaner, it was not dirty, found nothing)

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Condition inspection

900 hr findings....

torque on one fwd vertical stab bolt (under fairing) torque was ~15 in-lb. should have been 25 in-lb. tightened.

all other bolts and fittings had good torque.

I found a 50 ft/min leak rate on my static system. no action taken.

ELT check.

no cracks on the airframe. one small crack on the engine baffle at the oil cooler. it extends the width of a nut plate and hasn't grown in the past 200 hrs. no action taken.

no loose rivets or jam nuts. (jam nuts are glued in place with loctite.)

brake pads and tires are good. 900 hrs on the original nose wheel.

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in 900 hrs, I have needed to do very little maintenance (outside of normal wear items, tires, brakes, battery, etc.).

unscheduled maintenance includes:
1) hall effects sensor replaced on a mag because the sensor became "unpotted".

2) engine crank seal replaced.

3) UMA 2 1/4 backup altimeter internal leak

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Great Job Steve!

Please book my appointment for second week in October.

Thanks for all the pictures and details. I think I need to dig deeper this year. What your inspection really points out points out- if you build them right, they’re pretty well designed, durable, and reliable.
Terry, CFI
RV9A N323TP
 
Steve any reason for making carb heat door area smaller? I am talking about the cut corner where steel arm is. I know you calculate everything :)

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Steve any reason for making carb heat door area smaller? I am talking about the cut corner where steel arm is. I know you calculate everything :)

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no. I simply could not make it any bigger with my arrangement. it gives me about 40 RPM delta.
 
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Please book my appointment for second week in October.

Thanks for all the pictures and details. I think I need to dig deeper this year. What your inspection really points out points out- if you build them right, they’re pretty well designed, durable, and reliable.
Terry, CFI
RV9A N323TP

yep, and relatively inexpensive.
 
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