Well, I guess if it ain't broke, I should leave it alone.
At the last inspection I noted that one of the floats was at 4.2. The others were at 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3. Total engine time was 315 hrs.
I had planned to install the new torsion throttle springs anyway, so I bought a full set of new floats and installed them at the same time. By the way, each new float weighted in at 3.2. I fired it up, warmed it up, and performed the carb balance. Everything was great and it ran terrific (smooth as glass). The next morning I was off for a breakfast fly-in, or so I thought. After warm up I did the normal ignition check and found Ignition A was faltering badly. I shut down and did the simple thing first. I swapped all of the plugs top to bottom and bottom to top. Sure enough, the problem moved to ignition B. I don't mess with iffy plugs, and even though this set only had 115 hours on them, I installed a new set. All was well, smooth as glass again and run up was great.
That brings me to this morning when I was planning a nice morning flight. Having just been through some issues, I was very attentive at startup, which seemed good with everything running smooth. After warm up I did the ignition test and all was good. I powered up for takeoff and noticed some stuttering, and promptly aborted the take-off. Additional ground run testing revealed that it is running very rough at almost any rpm, and ignition check shows no difference using A or B. So, I shut down and pulled it back into the hangar. A finger swipe in tail pipe revealed extremely heavy soot. I pulled the top plugs and found #1 and #3 totally black whereas #2 and #4 looked pretty good. Obviously the right carb is running way too rich. ***THIS WAS AN ERROR*** Actually it was spark plugs #1 And #2 that were sooty. #3 and #4 were the ones that looked pretty good. So it ain't the carbs!!! So, my last paragraph here doesn't hold up, but I left it for clarification.........
I think that I have identified the fact the the right carb is running rich. The problem is knowing why, and what happened? I'm not much of a believer in coincidence, so I am trying to figure out how I could have possibly caused this, or where do I go from here.? Any help will be greatly appreciated..... Tom
At the last inspection I noted that one of the floats was at 4.2. The others were at 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3. Total engine time was 315 hrs.
I had planned to install the new torsion throttle springs anyway, so I bought a full set of new floats and installed them at the same time. By the way, each new float weighted in at 3.2. I fired it up, warmed it up, and performed the carb balance. Everything was great and it ran terrific (smooth as glass). The next morning I was off for a breakfast fly-in, or so I thought. After warm up I did the normal ignition check and found Ignition A was faltering badly. I shut down and did the simple thing first. I swapped all of the plugs top to bottom and bottom to top. Sure enough, the problem moved to ignition B. I don't mess with iffy plugs, and even though this set only had 115 hours on them, I installed a new set. All was well, smooth as glass again and run up was great.
That brings me to this morning when I was planning a nice morning flight. Having just been through some issues, I was very attentive at startup, which seemed good with everything running smooth. After warm up I did the ignition test and all was good. I powered up for takeoff and noticed some stuttering, and promptly aborted the take-off. Additional ground run testing revealed that it is running very rough at almost any rpm, and ignition check shows no difference using A or B. So, I shut down and pulled it back into the hangar. A finger swipe in tail pipe revealed extremely heavy soot. I pulled the top plugs and found #1 and #3 totally black whereas #2 and #4 looked pretty good. Obviously the right carb is running way too rich. ***THIS WAS AN ERROR*** Actually it was spark plugs #1 And #2 that were sooty. #3 and #4 were the ones that looked pretty good. So it ain't the carbs!!! So, my last paragraph here doesn't hold up, but I left it for clarification.........
I think that I have identified the fact the the right carb is running rich. The problem is knowing why, and what happened? I'm not much of a believer in coincidence, so I am trying to figure out how I could have possibly caused this, or where do I go from here.? Any help will be greatly appreciated..... Tom
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