As we posted last night, yesterday was ultimately a great day thanks to some awesome work by Matt and Ben buttoning up the airplane. It took a while to get there, though, due to some hiccups along the way. Our new little airplane came out of the hangar kicking and screaming a little, with some minor issues in the brakes, fuel system, oil system, and engine start (but she still started on the first attempt, so we win that bet!). At the end of the day, we had a perfectly functioning powerplant. Here's how we got there:
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We started with putting brake fluid in the brake system and
bleeding the air out of the lines.
Brake fluid goes in from the bottom up, there’s a valve at the bottom of
the brake stack. The white bottle
in front of me is just a yard sprayer you can get at Lowe’s with pressurized
air and brake fluid in it. It has
a tube on the end made for fitting to the brake line valve.
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The first tantrum our new airplane threw yesterday was a
brake leak…this is the aftermath.
It turns out one of the fittings we used had a manufacturer’s defect.
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Here is the male end of the fitting after we removed
it. Everywhere you see silver is
bad—the male end got scoured by the female end, which had a misshapen
countersink. The two pieces need
to match exactly—the seal is a metal-on-metal seal. We replaced the parts and didn’t have any more issues.
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We also had some final engine prep to do: routing the
cooling hoses, putting the spark plugs in, doing final checks on all the
routing & fitting of parts.
Here is the alternator belt on—the safety-wired bolts hold the belt in
the correct position.
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Tracy is putting the spinner on the prop. In the background, Matt is putting heat
tape on the inside of the cowling.
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While Tracy & Matt were working on the engine, Ben and I
were testing the fuel system. Here
is the resultant fuel leak—whoops!
This was our only big builder-induced error of the day. We wait to put the sump valves in the
bottom of the aircraft until right before we check the fuel. Today…well, we forgot to put the valves
in. In this picture my finger is
holding the rest of the fuel in the right wing as we get a gas can and
funnel. The fix for this is
simple, of course—put the valves in, dummy! Besides that our fuel system works perfectly. We did an entire fuel flush to check
for any debris or lack of flow at all the critical points in the system up to the engine.
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After the engine was prepped and we had fuel loaded, it was
time to pre-oil the engine. Our
engine holds 7 quarts, plus an extra quart that is used by the variable-pitch
propeller and the oil cooler/pan.
Before we start the engine for the first time, we pre-oil it to push oil
through all the engine components.
In this video, I am turning the starter while Ben checks the oil. He is waiting until oil comes out of the
port that goes to the oil cooler.
When it does, the engine is pre-oiled. You may notice the motor spins freely in this video—that’s
because the spark plugs are out so the engine isn’t fighting any air on its
compression cycle.
Once everything was buttoned up, our airplane saw sunlight
for the first time!
Our first Engine start was successful, but the engine was running rough
and the #4 cylinder was behaving badly—our Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) was
about 400deg higher that the rest of the cylinders. Uh-oh! We shut
it down and Ben went to work. Ben
is a wizard with engines—one of the previous customers calls him ‘Obi-Wan.’ He was able to isolate the problem to
some debris in the #4 injector port left from the factory. He pulled it out with a flashlight and
a magnet while the engine was still too hot to touch. The engine started right
up again with no issues. Success! Thanks, Ben!
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We’d also like to say congrats to Ted Setzer, one of the
Glasair Founders. After 30 years
of building them, Ted’s finally got a Sportsman of his own! Yesterday he put it on Alaska Bushweel
tires with his own custom-made bush gear, and took his wife flying in it for
(we think) the first time. This plane
is guaranteed to make all the Super Cub owners at OshKosh jealous this
year. Great work, Ted—she’s beautiful!
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