gratitude

[dwilson]

I am feeling very thankful for all the wonderful people my wife and I met on our trip from Washington state to Southern California and back last week in our RV-9A.

1st hop was Kelso to Cameron Park CA. Stopped by to see Mike Starkey's RV-10 project. Mike escorted us from the runway to his home and parked our RV9A outside his house. What a great time we had talking with Mike and taking him out to a wonderful Mexican lunch. He introduced us to a neighbor of his who also has a place near ours at Sunriver. Had a great chat.
As we were leaving I noticed the tinnerman washers on the front bulkhead of my spinner were charred and broken. Not good.
Mike took me into his shop and supplied me with new ones and a Torx screw driver to replace them.

Decided to fly on down to Caliveras county airport and show the problem to Craig Caito who built the prop and spinner for me. Craig was not on the field, but I talked to Andrew Turpen at Bud Field Aviation. It was just about quitting time, but he and two other fellows worked with me to pull the spinner and re-torque the prop bolts. We ended up spending about an hour and the wouldn't take anything for it but a little beer money! Really nice people and good gas prices too!

Next leg was to Fullerton CA. (KFUL)

My O-320 seemed to run a little rough intermittently as we flew. Cycled the mag/EI off and on, fiddled with the mixture, but couldn't seem to get a handle on it.
Coming in on final to KFUL it started running really rough!
Landed about 8:30 PM. Taxied over to AFI where I had arranged for a rental car, but they closed at 7:00 PM. Door was unlocked, so we went in and found a young fellow out in the hanger that got us hooked up with our car.

I was really bumbed out about the engine. Only 500 hours on it since total overhaul by Bart at Aeosport Power.
Ignition??? Carb/mixture???? 1000 miles from home with a real problem.

Didn't sleep too well that night trying to figure out what to do.

Next morning drove back to AFI and talked to Larry, their A/P guy. Larry said, "I am not supposed to work on other folks airplanes, but you can use my tools and I will tell you how to trouble shoot the mags.

We stepped through his process. -Not the mags.

Next I pulled the lower plugs and cleaned and gapped them. Larry had me hold my thumb over the spark plug hole and turn the prop to build up pressure in each cylinder, then release my thumb and blow out any lead that might be built up.

To be continued

[dwilson]

Continued from prior post:

Good pressure in 1,2 and 4, but low pressure in 3!

Larry grabbed his pressure gauges and hooked it up to #3.

20 psi. (It was 74 at annual 3 months ago.) NOT GOOD!

Larry said, "I can't help you any more than this, but let me call Ben across the field at Combat Air. He might be able to help.

Within 5 minutes Ben drove up in his little golf cart and took a look at the situation
"Can you taxi it across the runway to my shop?"
Yup.

Ben said he could do it, but he didn't have time right now as he was in the middle of an annual that had to get done, but if I wanted to borrow his tools and some hanger space, he would oversee what I as doing and help me with his expertise.
WOW WEE! I would love to do that.

Pulled the rocker cover off of number 3 and a chunk of steel fell out. Looks like either a valve keeper or valve guide off the exhaust valve. The valve was loose as a goose in the guide.

MAJOR BUMMER!!!!!

Ben said the folks over at Tims aircraft machining in Long Beach could either fix it or get me a new one by 10:00 AM tomorrow. GREAT!!! I need to head back to Washington by 1730 tomorrow night.

He was right. Tim's called at 9:15 AM the next day and said that my brand new Lycoming cylinder was ready to pick up.

Spent all day putting the new cylinder/piston in place and re-connecting everything. Started her up about 1300 and she ran like a top without any oil leaks.

Did the pre-break in tests and runup as per Lycoming. Picked up the wife and departed at 1730.

She ran great all the way home and used about two cups of oil in 6 hours.

My wife commented on what a nice bunch of people aviation folks are in general.

My thanks to Mike Starkey at Cameron Park for a wonderful afternoon.
And to the fellows at Bud Field Aviaton at Calaveras air field.

Thanks to Larry at AFI for directing my diagnosis and sending me to Ben at Combat Air. All Larry wanted was a note in the comments section of Airnav

Many thanks to Ben and the folks at Air Combat for helping me get back in the air! Less than $400 for the use of their tools, their expertise and oil and hardware and space. Check out this link. http://www.aircombat.com/

I have been blessed and you will be too if you ever have a chance to meet these folks.

[Mike S]

Duane, as I recall, you said the spinner washer problem was something new----I wonder if it was a symptom of the bad cyl??

Minor variance in the power pulse, that you could not notice, but the spinner saw them??

Just a thought.

It was great having you stop by, thanks for the kind words.

Glad all went smoothly in the long run.

Take care.

[dwilson]

I was thinking the same thing. The irregular firing likely caused acceleration/deceleration that the spinner felt. I think it heated up the nut plates and they lost a little of their grip and were able to loosen a little in the process.
I replaced all of the nut plates on the front spinner plate yesterday. Three of the four were broken across one of their legs.

Thanks again for your hospitality. Both Linda and I enjoyed meeting and talking with you.

I am in the process of purchasing a tail kit for an RV-10. Hope mine turns out as good as yours looks.

Duane

[Mike S]

So, did you loose any spinner washers on the flight home from SoCal with the new cylinder on??