November 2024
Why am I rebuilding this plane?
Let's start with the premis that this isn't a bad looking old plane.
It's been around for a few years, as it is now over 42 years old
according to the logs. While it looks good from a distance, up
close the dope on the fabric is seriously degraded with loads of
ringworm and failing seams, so requires a lot of patching and
repainting to keep it in the air. I knew this up front when I
bought the plane and it was priced accordingly. So, after 3
summers of fun with this plane, I've finally got enough space in my
schedule that it's time to recover it.
So, what else does it need?
1. The trim is inadequate.
It's barely adequate when I have a full tank and a passenger in
the front seat. Otherwise I run out of nose down trim. If I
take the front windscreen off, the plane wants to dive at the ground
even with full nose up trim. So, the spring biasing trim is going
to go away in favor of two Ray Allen trim servos; one mounted in either
elevator. The hinges are already there as it apparently had trim
tabs on it in the past, but they were removed for unknown reasons.
I see there is an abandoned bowden cable in the aft fuselage, so
I suspect that used to be the trim control.
2. Inadequate fuel quantity.
A thirsty O-360 with only 20 gallons of fuel doesn't give a slow
plane much range. I want to work out a design to add some fuel to
the upper center section.
3. Fuel quantity indicator.
It had a float and stick indicator like a Cub. That's fine
if it works, but on this plane, the float hit the back of the tank and
the stick was not nearly deep enough, so only measured the top half of
the fuel tank. Not very useful information. Additionally,
the hole for the stick spews fuel onthe windscreens when you're upside
down.
4. Tired magnetos.
The impulse coupled Bendix mag on the left side often times
misses on the impulse coupler causing the engine to kick back.
I'm surprised that it hasn't trashed the starter. (Kudos to
B&C for building a tough starter!) My other two planes have
Slick mags, so I recently acquired a set of slicks for this plane off a
RV that was upgrading to P-mags. That way I only have to keep one
set of spares on the shelf for all 3 planes.
5. Top overhaul of the engine.
This is a strong running engine, but also uses a lot of oil
despite the fact that it really doesn't leak. That says it has
either oil ring or valve guide issues. I bought new Superior
cylinders and some 10:1 compression pistons for it, so will add a bit
of HP in the process.
6. The rear cockpit is a hodge-podge
of instruments and radios mounted whereever they could be fitted with
little regard to ergonomics or visual scan. I don't know that
I'll straighten it all out, but I have purchased and Electronics
International CGR-30 to consolidate all the engine instrumentation.
7. Recover and repaint. The fabric on
this plane is just plane tired. The seams are pulling and the
dope is extremely brittle. It looks bad up close and takes a lot
of work to keep it looking decent. It needs to be recovered.
I plan to do the recover using Ceconite with the AirTech covering
process.
Here's a concise list of the pages addressing these issues as I address them.
Engine overhaul
Electronics/Electrical
Fuel System
Trim System
Fabric Recover