Jamie

Jamie

Well Known Member
Hi Guys:

Does anyone have any photos showing a properly installed aft-mounted prop governor? My FWF kit came with a cable bracket that attaches at the governor mounting flange on the studs. With the governor mounted, the rounded flange of the governor is pointed to the top right. The lever is pointed down. I can't seem to find any orientation of the bracket that makes sense. It seems that the bracket intends for the lever to be pointed up, but if I turn the lever around the orientation for course/fine pitch settings will be reversed which means the bracket is then useless because I would need to bring the cable in from the opposite direction.

I've seen other brackets that attach using the screws on the lever end of the governor, but as mentioned mine attaches on the studs. The drawings I have show the screw-mounted bracket.
 
Thanks for the pictures, Dave. Yes, my governor is the MT -- forgot to mention that.

If your governor is the same part number is mine, then it seems to me that your governor is connected backward. Using the part number table in the governor manual, it says that my governor will increase pitch with a CW motion. Rotating the lever around still means that the clockwise-most position is the course position. With your cable fully extended (blue knob full forward), it looks like your governor is in the course position. If the lever were on the bottom, it looks like the orientation would be correct. That's the gist of my problem.

Am I misinterpreting all of this stuff?
 
Hmm. Interesting. I'll double-check my part number and manual tonight. I remember looking it up once and thinking it was going to work correctly. That would be an awful shock if it was hooked up backward.
 
I know on my McCauley gov I had to take the bolts out and turn the back to get the bracket to line up.

Roberta
 
My MT prop governor is part# P-860-4. The manual indicates turning the lever CW (facing the governor mounting pad) for this model will increase oil pressure to increase blade pitch. The Hartzell manual says the prop will default to low pitch without oil pressure. Increasing oil pressure will increase pitch. So far so good. My throttle quadrant says low RPM at the bottom and high RPM at the top. However, pushing the quadrant forward will turn the prop governor clockwise, which will increase pitch, which will decrease RPM. That sounds backward.

I have the governor installed just like the VA-183 drawing shows. Maybe Vans shipped us the wrong governor. I've never flown with a CS prop, so maybe I have something wrong. I'll shoot them an email tomorrow.
 
Well, looks like we're on the same page, Dave. I went back out and triple-checked and my mind is still telling me that the bracket and governor are not compatible. I also checked my part # and it's P-860-4 as well.

Hmm...I can't believe no one else has had a problem with this.
 
When did you receive your governor? Mine arrived early October 2005 in the firewall forward kit from Vans.

I agree that it's strange this hasn't come up before. Either we're misunderstanding something, or there are a bunch of prop governors that are operating backward out there that just haven't been started up yet.

I fired off an email to Vans this morning.
 
I received my governor back in May of this year. I have an e-mail into Van's as well. It will be interesting to see if the answers are the same.
 
I have the same MT governor and 2 blade MT prop.

I rebent my cable bracket to line up with the governor control arm. My control arm points down and thus when viewed from behind CW movement, increases pitch (pull cable out).

All you need to do it rebend the mounting bracket.

Steve
RV7A
IO-360
 
Thanks for the confirmation. Bending the bracket, touching up the powder coating, re-orienting the stupid prop governor lever again, and re-safety wiring the screws all in the 3" or so of room between it and the firewall wouldn't be my first choice.

Have you gotten a response from Vans yet Jamie (other than the one I got which basically said I'm overthinking things)?
 
Update

Ok, I got a response from Van's (which turned out to be correct), but I still wanted more confirmation.

A friend of mine who is building a -7 contacted MT about the governor issue. They stated that the 'CW' and 'CCW' in the manual does not refer to the lever arm rotation -- it refers to the gear rotation. Apparantly some governors need to turn the other direction. I assume that one such scenario would be with a forward-mounted governor..but I'm not sure about this.

Anyway...it looks like just poor documentation and the governor and bracket will work as supplied and documented. So Dave, looks like you're a few months ahead of me so let me know how that first engine start goes!

When the documentation says "Pressure to increase pitch CCW", etc. it makes you wonder what their doc people were smoking.
 
That's great to hear! One less thing to lose sleep over. I think the doc people (at least the technical ones) sprechen Deutsch, and something got lost in the translation. I'll let you know how the engine start goes hopefully in a few months time. I could technically take the plane to the airport fairly soon, put the wings on, and start her up. However, I'm going to get as much as possible done in the garage for efficiency's sake.
 
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