Making Progress Ain't Always Easy

I am drawing near, but Murphy's Law is omnipresent.

I was finally able to do my annual inspection and wrap this project up.  (What a patient wife I have). I use a seven page checklist to make sure I hit everything.  I finally got into the tail area to install a new battery and to look things over back there.  I used Jerry Marstall's nifty tail cradle, and it worked just great.  I wish I had one of these 20 years ago. As a bonus, when you are done with it, it folds down and you can store it up against a wall in your hangar.  You can get Jerry's plans somewhere at Quickheads. 

Toward the end of the annual I wanted to do a fresh weight and balance and I was able to borrow a set of calibrated scales from AvTech. Through all of that work, the plane only gained three pounds.  I'm satisfied with that.

I finally signed off the annual and took it around for a taxi spin. It was nice to have it all in one piece with all the electronics installed.

I really thought I was going to be able to fly. The other day I taxied out the full mile to the long runway at KMDH. Did my run-up and found the electronic ignition, which feeds the bottom plugs to be very rough.  What the F?  It was fine when I left the hangar. I figured it was a fouled plug and that it should clear up once I was in the air (the mag was running fine), but then I thought better of it and taxied back to Hangar 27.

One problem with a newly overhauled engine is the piston rings haven't seated yet and there can be excess oil in the combustion chamber until things settle down.  This excess oil can also foul spark plugs.

So I cleaned the plug and fixed a couple of other engine squawks I found that could cause oil leaks.  I am condensing this write-up, but all of this seems to drag on for days.  I can't say for 100% certainty is if a spark plug fouling issue, or if it is an electronic ignition problem.

Yesterday I gave it another shot.  Taxied the mile out again, was first in position and damn!  Rough engine on the electronic ignition again.  Really rough.  Since the magneto side was running fine, I did a high speed run down the runway to try and clear it, but no joy. Back to the hangar.

In a positive note while doing all this taxing, I found the plane is handling on the ground really well, better than before.  I attribute that to the care I took in doing the Gall Alignment, by the book. I used David's calculations to establish toe-out and camber.  So far, I'm quite pleased with the handling. For more info, see this post: http://samhoskins.blogspot.com/2014/06/sam-put-your-pants-on.html

As if the ignition problem wasn't enough, when I got back to the hangar I found this.  Rats!

I have this custom aluminium oil tank and it seems to have developed another crack. It ain't easy being Experimental. I have a talented fellow available that can repair it, I hope this weekend.  When it's done I am going to heat treat it.  I am reading up on the process, but it involves heating the tank up to 700 deg. F, then quenching it with water.

So, today I'm going to throw in fresh set of automotive plugs and see it it helps the ignition miss issue. After I've done that, it's time to drain the oil.

As always, stay tuned....

EDIT:  I replaced the lower plugs and it ran just fine.  Whew!

Catching up.

Well as you know, I missed both the AirVenture Cup Race and Oshkosh.  I finally got to the point where I accepted that no matter the effort, it wasn't going to happen.  Actually, it was a bit of a relief for me, and I was finally able to get caught up with a few things, like getting a haircut and mowing the lawn.

Anyway, here is the latest with some duplication from the last post.

Thought I'd celebrate being on three wheels by getting a little air.

Engine mounted with the fuel injection harness and fuel manifold hooked up.

My little brother Robbie came down for a few days to help out.  He is glad to be out of the Chicago suburbs for a little while.

The canard after doing the epoxy wipe.  Six applications on the upper surface.

Click on this photo to see it bigger. You can really see how the scratches and pinholes are filled. After it has cured a day or two, simply block sand with 180 grit.

Sam showing a bit of stress. This was before I threw in the towel.  We did put in some long hard days.

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Engine finally ready to go, complete with the cylinder baffling and the the upper plenum installed.  Just need to put in the oil and some gas.

Trial with my beautiful Craig Catto prop and the spinner.

Moving along, just not fast enough.

It was a mad dash to try and get it ready for Oshkosh.  Very long days.

The canard how has a nice coat of micro-filler

Maybe not the most optimum time to hang the engine, but I needed the morale boost.  I had almost as much fun dissembling the crate, and freeing up the floor space, as I did hanging the engine.  There is a lot to hook up and install; the fuel injection manifold & harness, the starter & alternator, magneto, etc.  There is also a lot of baffling.

My little brother Rob came down from northern Illinois to help out.  Rob has lots of painting experience.  As a matter of fact, he painted this aircraft in 1985 when I was building at the Flying Cloud airport in Minnesota.

After sanding the filler with 36 grit, then 80 grit paper, we did the epoxy wipe. You squeegee it on, than squeegee off as much as you can.  Four applications on the underside, and six on the top of the canard. The temps were warm, so it tacked up quickly.

Be sure to click on this photo to see it better.  You can see all the huge scratches and pinholes.  The epoxy wipe fills all of it.

 Finally have some paint on it. I still have to do the elevators and a bit of buffing.

His mission complete, little Rob hits the road.  This has to be the loudest motorcycle I've ever heard.  He's my little brother, and I gotta love him.

Another Big Day

Another step toward success.  Today I was extremely lucky to have a very special guest helper for a couple of hours.  We got the top surface of the canard and wheel pants covered in micro!  A few hours later I went back and did the rough cut with  Surform files.

We ran out of the West System epoxy hardener, so I used some old FAST hardener I had laying around.  Probably at least 6 years old and it had been opened, but it seemed to work fine.  It's the dark material in the photos. 

Few hours later I came back and hit it with the Surform file.  It's really important to do this at this stage, because a day later the epoxy gets a lot harder and it's more difficult to work.

 

To my dismay I may have a few low spots.  Maybe I'll try some spare use of the fast hardener just to get me by.

I Like My Fillets Medium Rare

One time consuming and important job is installing the fillets.  Naturally things weren't quite the same fit with the new canard and elevators, so I had to adapt the old fuselage fillets to the new desired positions.

The first one was on the belly, where the canard fit into the fuselage.

I salvaged what was left of the old panel I had cut off after the old canard was removed.  It was pretty hacked up from Mr. Sawzall, but enough to work with.

I didn't capture quite all the steps, but you get the idea.  First we glued the panel in place with flox, just enough to establish the position.  Then I took a thin slab of foam, slathered it with two-part foam, then jammed it into place.  The two-part foam has pretty well cured in 30 minutes, so you can start working it right away.

Some easy sanding, and it's ready for glass. Since this is non-structural, it only gets one layer of BID fiberglass. I also applied the removable peel ply.

 This shot shows the glassed panel, after the peel ply has been removed.  You might not know it, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Now it's time for the canard fillets, same basic process.  Add foam, sand to shape, then cover with one BID of glass.

At the training edge of the fillet, I glued a slab of foam with two-part, to the existing fillet.  Over the canard, I made a little tunnel out of cardboard, then poured the foam in.

For the fillets, I have a two foot cardboard tube covered with 36G sandpaper that I use to make the desired shape.

After fiberglassing and peel ply, it looks halfway decent.

 By the way, here is a picture of my shop in the hangar.  Just thought I'd throw that in.  Not very organized, but I get by.

Unreal help

The one job that I was not looking forward in any shape or fashion was looming.  It's the task of applying the reinforcing fiberglass tapes to the interior of the fuselage, where it meets the canard.  It involves sliding under the instrument panel, working in extremely cramped quarters, in very awkward poses.

As fate would have it, fellow Q-200 builder and flyer Sanjay Dhall just happened to be in the neighborhood, visiting his in-laws. Sanjay had sent me an email announcing his visit, and that he wanted to come and help with the project.  I called him and said that I had this one terrible job and would he be interested?  Sanjay jumped at it.

So yesterday, Sanjay made it to Hangar 27.  With great enthusiasm he went after it. The first thing that had to be dome was to use the Dremel tool to roughen up the flox joints, to prepared for better bonding.  After that was done we (he) started on the glassing,

I would cut the glass to shape and add in the epoxy and hand it to him cut to whatever length he needed. Every time he came up for a breather he still came up smiling.  Oh, did I mention the temperature in the hangar was 98 degrees?  Did I mention he wore a long sleeve sweatshirt to keep the epoxy off of him?

We started all this around 2:00 and it took about 4-1/2 hours, and he was smiling the whole time, then he thanked me for letting him be a part of this repair on this "historic aircraft". His words, not mine.

Thanks Sanjay.  Thank you, thank you thank you.

 This where he was working.

It's a Big Day

We reached a big milestone today, the canard is finally in place!  I wound up having a big crew today and they made the operation go smoothly. Thanks go to Pete Polete, Larry Flesner, Bill Hunter, Clarke Deacon, Bob Kolkmeyer for jumping in and lending a hand.

The day before, Pat and I had located the mounting blocks for the rudder pedals.  I established this position from their location on the old canard.

 Got up early to add the glass that really locks the mounting blocks in place.  I am rather sensitive about this, since I had an accident on my 15th flight in this a/c, because the rudder pedals tore loose. I would just as soon not repeat that act.

After I explained what we were trying to accomplish, the crew and I did a dry run to make sure everything aligned properly.  We had to verify canard skew, angle of attack in relation to the existing airframe, centering on the fuselage left-to-right, and tip-to-tip level.

After the dry run, I had a little more grinding to do, then it was time for the real deal.

This reminds me of the teetering rocks seen in the Road Runner cartoons.  We used this stack of Styrofoam to keep the wings level.  Rube Goldberg would have been proud.

Finally all glued up.  We just glued in the canard to the firewall and to the bottom of the magneto box.  After it cures for 24 hrs, I'll start adding the fiberglass reinforcing tapes.

I remember what this feels like.  Feels good.