Flying Backward

Continental IO-360 - Part 2

2015-09-27T23:04:00.002-07:00

A few weeks ago my brother stopped by with a load of steel and welded up a test stand for me. I cleaned up the Cessna engine mount, painted it white and bolted it on the stand. In the picture below I have placed my Silver bullet prop on for the photo op. I will soon order a prop adapter/extension from Saber. I have a lot of work to go before I fire this thing up, but its getting close!

Continental IO-360

2015-05-27T23:54:00.000-07:00

The Lycoming O-290 didn't work out. The crank, lifters, cam and cylinders were shot. I don't think the purchase was a mistake. It was a low risk purchase to begin with. I paid $1000 for the engine and managed to recoup my money by selling the carburetor, mags and a few other parts. I think I actually made a profit after all the parts I sold. We may make a coffee table from the remaining parts and I got to learn a lot about how these air cooled engines go together.

I was really looking for a low time O-320 when I found this continental IO-360 for sale. The engine only had 100 hours SMOH, however it had been sitting in a barn for over 20 years. It was pretty crummy looking. But the price was right, so I took a chance.

I mounted the engine nose down on the same stand my brother made for the O-290 and began to pull the cylinders. At first I thought I would be in luck, the first couple cylinders looked pretty good. Minimal corrosion. But, by the closer I got to the #5 and #6 cylinders that had been sitting at the bottom for years, the more they had corroded. The last cylinder had 1/4 cup of loose rust.

I found a set of low time cylinders and pistons. The pistons are TSIO-360 pistons. Lower compression, so there will be something like a 10-15 HP loss, however I should be able to run high octane auto fuel. Its basically a IO-360-A converted to a IO-360-AF (alternative fuel).

I purchased new rings, honed the cylinders and installed them on the engine after many hours of cleaning and prepping. I have also moved the engine to a new larger shop that I will share with fellow builder Marc Oppelt. Eventually the whole project will move to that shop, but not until the engine is ready. The shop is really cool, we have a lounge area, a beer fridge and Marc has a killer set of shop tools, including welders, hoist and others.

Here is the engine after I prepared the cylinders, cleaned and painted the case and accessories. One Cylinder is fitted for the photo op.

All six cylinders installed and intake manifold installed.

Here is the engine as of today. New mags, harness, plugs, starter all installed. I have a few gaskets and bolts to install, rig up a air filter, bolt down the starter and alternator and then build and mount a test stand. It's been quite a process, but with any luck I'll have this thing running on the test stand this summer.

Long overdue update

2014-05-15T21:47:00.000-07:00

Well It's been a very long time since I have posted an update. Over the last year I have been playing with different engines.

First off I found a Lycoming O-290-G conversion engine. This engine was installed on an experimental Cub and removed for an upgrade. I new nothing about the engine history other than the fact that it had a pair of nearly new magnetos. Because of the magnetos I decided it was a small risk to buy the engine. I drove up to to Port Townsend and picked it up for $1000.

Above is the O-290 mounted on an engine stand that my brother was kind enough to fabricate for me from some spare material he had around his shop.

Unfortunately after tearing down the engine I discovered a number of problems. The cylinders had a little corrosion. Probably so little corrosion that they could have been cleaned up with a hone and some elbow grease. But the real problems were further down. The camshaft was toast. One cam lobe is nearly round. The lifters were all badly spalled and pitted. There was a lot of metal imbedded in the main bearings and clogging the bearing oil ways. The crank was badly spalled and the main bearings appear to have rotated in the case.

Bottom line is that this engine wasn't worth overhaul. I was right though about the risk, I sold the carburetor and the magnetos and recovered my investment. I am still selling some misc engine parts on ebay and the rest will likely become a coffee table for Marc's shop.

Here are the nearly new magnetos and harnesses that I sold.

Spalled lifters.

More control system

2012-05-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

Following my last post I have been making slow progress at completing the control system.

I received my machined firewall bearing housing back from my machinist contact. I had two made. One for me and one for Marc Oppelt.

Don't mind the bearing in this photo. It was the wrong bearing. I replaced this with a sealed precision bearing.

I also ordered materials, hardware and rod end bearings for all the push rods. It was fun to fit the inserts and rivet them together.

Here are my control stick yokes. The plans call for a simple steel tube. The CG Products sells control yokes similar to these for Long-EZ and Cozy aircraft. I thought this was a good idea, I Marc and I welded up a couple of sets. I had them powder coated and they turned out great. In hindsight, I think I should have just gone with the plans tube. I can't figure out what problem was solved by making a more complex part. Still I am happy with the result.

Here is the yoke installed on the torque tube. You can also see the custom ball bearing and retainer as discussed in the previous post.

Here is a nice shot of "the office" showing the control stick and throttle quadrant.

I posted this earlier, but here again is the B-8 grip that I reconditioned.

Here is the throttle quadrant after I polished the control arms. My plan was to anodize them, but before I could get the process down, I found great success with polishing the aluminum.

Engine mount and control system

2012-02-12T22:45:00.000-08:00

So, after not a lot of activity with this project, I have made some progress. I rearranged and cleaned up the shop, replaced the florescent tubes (what a bid difference that made).

I distracted my self for a few weeks experimenting with anodizing aluminum. A process I may use to finish off some interior control parts (canopy latches, etc.). More on that another day.

But, now on to real progress. Yesterday I glassed the main spar permanently into the fuselage. This followed some thoughts about the engine mount. I will likely install an o-320 engine and stronger engine mount hardware is probably warranted. After some discussion with other builders I settled on 1"x1"x3/16" stainless steel extrusions. Why stainless steel? Well mainly because 4130 is not available in an extruded form. I would have had to purchase the steel plate and had it bent at extra cost. The stainless is not quite as strong as 4130 steel, but much much stronger than the plans 1/4" 2024 aluminum. Here is a picture of the mount test fit:

I still need perform the final fit and installation of the steel engine mount extrusions, but in the meantime I have started some work on the control system. The CG Products (Cozy Girrrls) sell a complete Long-EZ control system for just under $700. This complete kit is very tempting and I am sure is a good value. However I think I can save some money by completing the system myself (with some help). The plans call for phenolic block for the control system bearings. The Girrrls sell a housed ball bearing to replace the phenolic for $50.00 ea. my solution was a flanged ball bearing from Mcmaster-Carr and a simple 1/8" bearing retainer. Total cost for both bearings is about $25.00 including shipping.

Here are the bearings after aloziding the retainers and bonding the bearings into the retainers with Locktite compound.

A diversion

2011-12-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

So it has been quite a while since I last posted on my Long-EZ build progress. For the most part this is because I done very little with the project for the past 5 months or so.

After I drilled the wing/spar bolt holes I test fitted the spar wings and canard on to the fuselage. It was great to see all these major parts assembled into something that looked like an aircraft.

Unfortunately after assembling all of this I sat down in the garage to take a break and then noticed a problem. The main spar and wings were level, but the canard was not. How could this be?! The canard was level with the fuselage longerons and so was the spar. After more investigation, I found that the fuselage has some twist to it. I will now have to remount the canard to fix the problem. Not a big deal, but I hate having to do things twice.

The other problem I have is that not having two wings, a canard and a fuselage with a spar mounted, there is very little room to navigate my garage. Something had to be done to fix this, so today I dissembled my small work bench and slid the large work table up to the wall where the bench used to be. This now gives me enough room to move about. I need to re-organize the shop and upgrade the lighting.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 19

2011-05-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

Since my last update I have completed installation of the right wing aileron and nearly completed the left wing aileron.

Today Marc and I loaded the wings and center spar into his truck and headed down the street to my work supervisor, Pete's, house, where he has a nice 3 car garage. We proceeded to level the wings on 6 of the cheapest crappiest saw horses I have ever used. I purchased 4 of them a couple of days earlier. Coincidentally Pete also had two of them on hand as well.

Finally after dropping the center spar on the floor of the garage once, we managed to get the wings set up pretty stable and level. We used standard bubble levels, Marc's laser level and a water level to ensure the wings were set up correctly.

We then proceeded to match drill through the center spar into the wing attachment points. I started out using the spot face tool as described in the plans, however that was a very slow process and I managed to burn up my drill. We then switched to a 5/8" bi-metal hole saw that I purchased today as advised by Marc, who probably did a lot of research into the procedure than me.

In the end all went quite well and I am very happy with the results.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 18

2011-03-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Last week and yesterday I finnished installing the wing root aileron hardware.

Pictured here is the infinity spherical bearing prior to bonding the click bond fasteners (seen bolted to the bearing houseing). I did make sure to sand the fiberglass and clickbond surfaces prior to flox and glass.

Pictured here is all of the wing root aileron hardware installed except for the pushrod and rod end bearings between the bellcranks.

Also yesterday I layed up the two plies of bid glass to close out the aileron ends. Today I cleaned up the edges and reinstalled the aileron.

With the left wing aileron work complete for now, I turned my attention to the right wing. Pictured here is the right wing aileron liberated from the wing.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 17

2011-03-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

Today I completed installation of the aileron on the left wing.

The next step after removing the protective tape from the ailerons (see step 16) was to apply small dabs of bondo between the hinge and aileron. I used some small pieces of foam rubber to hold the hinge up against the aileron while the bondo set. This was a somewhat frustrating procedure as the plans do not explain well how to do this. I actually tried to complete this step last week and I gave up for the night.

Next I unbolted the hinges from the wing, removed the aileron and drilled holes through the hinge for rivets.

After test fitting the aileron on the wing and removing it again, I temporarily installed control hardware. The hardware store machine screws will be replaced with AN hardware soon.

Pictured here is the universal joint that connects the torque tube to the aileron.

Pictured here is a more complete view of the aileron control hardware including the spherical bearing (blue). Also in this photo, if you look close, you will see that I have yet to close up the end of the aileron with bid glass.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 16

2011-02-21T21:25:00.000-08:00

More work today on the left aileron and wing.

Pictured here I have clamped a straight edge on the wing to guide me while cutting out the hinge notches on the top skin of the wing. This ensured that the hinges were all in line with each other and inset the proper amount.

Pictured below is the inboard most hinge with clickbonds test fitted. The plans call for a machine screw and a nutplate to be riveted to the hinge. The ckickbond fasteners are simpler to install and will have a seamless appearance then the wing if finished. This hinge happens to be 8" with three fasteners, the middle and outboard are 6" with two.

Pictured here is the middle span hinge with showing the clickbond fasteners protruding through the top skin and hinge.

And here is the inboard hinge clickbonds floxed in place with two plies BID. The hinge has a protective clear tape to ensure that any flox or epoxy will not bond the hinge to the clickbond or wing.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 15

2011-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

Work continued on the left aileron today. I completed fabrication of the A-2 and A-5 brackets.

Next I resessed the forward face of the aileron to mount the brackets flush with the foam surface. These were then bonded in place with micro along with the 9"x3/4" A-10 torque tube.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 14

2011-02-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Monday I was greeted at my front door by a box from the Cozy Girrrls containing many pieces of wing hardware.

Also earlier, last week, I received the wing root spherical bearings from Infinity Aerospace (the blue bearings in the photo).

And as luck would have it, another builder was selling extra universal joints and I managed to pick them up for a little under Aircraft Spruces price.

This weekend I will attempt to complete the left aileron and begin work on the right.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 13

2011-02-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I began working on the left aileron. I started by carefully ripping down a scrap of lumber to create a 120 degree guide for the Fein tool while cutting the aileron from the tip wing skin.

Pictured here is the top wing skin after cutting. This part of the operation was done correctly. Unfortunately cutting the aileron from the bottom skin didn't go as well. I made a stupid mistake when transferring the measurements from the plans to the wing and then cut too much from the wing. I was really upset with myself for doing that, but after some calm planning I realized that the fix was not going to be a big deal at all. I glassed the aileron back onto the wing (underside only), let it cure and re-cut the aileron correctly, all was good in the universe again. Unfortunately I did not take the time to take photos of this process.

Pictured here is the left aileron with the 7/16" steel rod counter weight bonded in place.

Pictured here is the aft wing rib that is laid up with 3 plies BID glass into the area the aileron was removed.

Aileron control hardware should be arriving by UPS tomorrow. I hope to have this chapter wrapped up by then end of this month or early March.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 12

2011-01-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I layed up the top spar cap of the left wing. Unfortunatly I received a phone call from my brother just before laying up the final 20" ply of spar cap uni. I spent a few to many minutes discussing Christmas plans and the spar cap epoxy started to gell. I layed on the final 20" ply, but it refused to wet out completely. I finaly gave up tring to save that ply and just let it cure completely.

After final cure I sanded off all of the uni roving that didn't wet out and applied a 22" piece over the repair area.

Here is the section cureing just after the repair. Looks a little sloppy, but its not as bad as the picture lets on.

Here is the left wing after top skinning, again with the help of Marc Oppelt. This took us about 3 hours. Practice has made these large layups quicker. Recently there has been a friendly debate on one of the online forums about the value of using an epoxy pump. My opinion is that those expensive pumps are really neat, and probably worth the money, however even with the largest of layups like this top wing skin, the use of a digital scale and cheaper west system pumps works just fine.

Yesterday I used the dremel tool to rout out 0.7" of foam from the forward inboard wing rib area, and today I layed up the three plies of bid glass. I now have two wings at this same stage.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 11

2010-12-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday some time was spend preping the bottom wing for glass. This included sanding down the lower wing foam in the spar cap vicinity to give a nice smooth transition to the spar cap. The hotwire process left the sparcap a little too deep in places. I will need a little extra mico fill to correct the wing contour at the finnish stage. The plans describe this situation so I am not concerned.

Marc Oppelt stopped by this afternoon and helped me glass the bottom of the left wing. Today was yet another example of the value of having another builder assist, It's almost like having two of yourself. I spend a lot of time just mixing epoxy while Marc wetted out the glass.

I may get up early tomorrow morning to knife trim the glass. If I do I will also spread dry micro into the trailing edge joggle. Then it will be time to reinstall the lower jigs and flip the wing over for the top skin.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 10

2010-11-28T15:44:00.000-08:00

Early this month I continued work on the left wing. I did things a little different this time. I made a 2x4 frame that I then layed on the floor and leveled with shims. This was much easier than bonding each individual jig to the floor.

After making sure the 2x4 frame was a level as possible, I then attached the jigs to the frame with small angle irons and screwed in diagonal bracing.

When everything was ready to go it was time for the shear web. Local aircraft builder Marc Oppelt stopped by and helped me layup the shear web and install the forward wing cores. Having another hand did help make the job quicker, however the process was still long. Some builders have recomended laying up all plies for the shearweb on a flat surface on plastic and then transfering the whole mess to the cores. I just couldn't picture how this would work, with making sure the web was trimmed correctly. However after further though I think I understand now how this could be done and save time. Also another change. Marc brought by some resperators that he had handy. In the past I had sort of gotten used to the odor, however with the risk of becoming sensitive to the expoxy, it is good practice to limit exposure to the fumes. The masks worked great at filtering out the fumes, but were a little uncomfortable. I will wear a mask now for all large layups.

My girlfriend Serena helped me move the wing from the floor to the workbench on friday and today I layed up the bottom spar cap.

Stick Grip.

2010-11-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

I just recently purchased a B-8 style stick grip through e-bay for not a lot of money. These things usually go for up to $300 used. Because mine was damaged and missing a button I picked it up for $70.

It was pretty rough when I got it. The trigger was cracked and falling appart, the hand rest on the right hand side was mostly missing, one button was missing and another I found out was a normaly closed/push to open.

A little mending and a couple of new switches and it is almost like new. The internal trigger switch also disintegrated, so I have ordered a limit switch that I will retrofit into the handle.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 9

2010-10-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Marc Oppelt ( http://sites.google.com/site/garagerocket/ ) stopped by and helped me hot wire the left wing. For the most part the whole operation went very smoothly. Sunday night I bonded the foam cores to gather to make up the 5 individual cores now ready for jigging and shear web. The second wing is now well on its way to completion.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 8

2010-10-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

The right wing has been put away for some time to clear the shop for preparations for the left.

I have not completed the right wing, most notably the aileron and glassing the wing root area.

Before beginning work on the left wing I made new wing jigs that I just finished off today. My first wing jigs were made with crappy plywood and I was just not happy with them. I purchased a better grade plywood and I am a little happier with the new jigs.

Another development with the project occurred last weekend when I picked up a used Varieze cowl. While the cowl is beautifully made it will not work, at least without a lot of modifications. It was a gamble that may not have paid off. Still it may work for me. I will hold on to it until the time comes to decide what direction I should take with the cowl.

I will hot wire cut the left wing as soon as I can secure some assistance.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 7

2010-09-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

During the month of August more work was completed on the first (right) wing.

After the shear web and hard point layups were complete, I joined the leading edge cores to the wing and re-installed the forward wing jigs.

Next leading edge wing root was trimmed to 90 degrees to the shear web as indicated by the black line.

Here is the foam core after trimming. Also you can see the aluminium hard point prior to glassing the wing.

Here is the bottom of the wing after laying up the lower spar cap and ready for glassing.

Local canard builder Marc Oppelt is seen here after the bottom of the wing was glassed. Marc is building a very interesting Long-EZ derivative here in Olympia. His project has a slightly larger fuselage and he intends to install a V8 auto engine. If my plane makes it to 10, Marc's will go to 11. Seriously though, Marc has been a great help with both the top and bottom skin of the wing. I believe that these layups are the biggest in the whole project and with Marc's help they went very smoothly. In addition Marc has been really resourceful in finding alternate and local suppliers of materials and parts. Recently we both stumbled upon a supper deal that provided me with enough foam to complete my left wing and provided Marc a great deal of foam for his project and landing gear parts. Having another builder to help is golden, you both learn a little and the job goes quicker.

Here is the right wing after bottom skinning. Peel ply is applied to prep for winglet installation.

After skinning the bottom of the wing I flipped it over an began preparing for the top skin. Here is pictured the process for removing the foam "tail" and removing the peel ply for a glass to glass binding on the trailing edge.

Marc again stopped by to skin the top of the wing. All went well, but I was rushing to prep for the skinning and forgot to rout out the rudder cable channel until after we had smeared micro slurry over the wing (DOH!!). Not a big deal though. We just ran the router through the foam over the micro, made mess of my Dremel tool, but all turned out fine. Again, thanks to Marc O for his assistance.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 6

2010-08-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally got back to some real work on the right wing. I laid up the shear web. I did run into a couple of minor road blocks however.

First of all, I started to late in the day. As usual the layups took longer than I expected. I spent 6 hours cutting glass, mixing epoxy and wetting out the plies. Because of this I had to stop short and didn't lay up the reinforcing lay ups wher the aluminium hardpoints are installed. Instead I peel plied the areas for later.

Also I failed to recognize that I was running low on peel ply. The entire shear web should be peel plied after the glass is laid up. Because I was low on peel ply I only applied the dacron tape to the areas that the spar caps will be bonded in later steps. The forward face of the shear web is bonded to the forward foam blocks with micro and does not require such a super strong bond.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 5

2010-07-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Found some time today to do a little more work on the wings.

I finnished routing out the wing attachment depressions with my Dremel tool and sandpaper. These depresseions will later house the wing attachment nuts and allow space for a ratchet. I followed this with 2 layers of bid fiberglass. I will knife trim the exess glass tonight after the expoxy has set up enough.

Next I finnished fabricating the two LWA4s and LWA6 for this wing. These were then treated with Alumiprep and Alodine.

Finnaly I bonded the LWA6 with bondo. The smaller LWA4s will be bonded in place after I have trimed the wing attach depressions of the excess glass.

Intermission

2010-07-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have not had a lot of spare time these last few months. Washington state's fiscal year ends on June 30 and this time of year is especially busy for me at work.

I just got back from a trip to the Arlington airshow and saw some really cool aircraft and I am anxious to continue my own project.

Thanks to all who check in on my build blog on a regular basis.

More build updates to come soon.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 4

2010-04-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well, today, after a little break from the project I managed to get a little work done. But first I'll back up a bit.

A couple of weeks ago I completed temporarily bonding the wing jigs to the floor of the shop with Bondo. Care was taken to ensure that the templates were lined up, level and square. In the photo you can see, if you look close, the red laser line that I used to allign all of the templates.

After the wing jigs were bonded to the floor I test fitted the foam cores. This was not an easy task because the fit was very tight, especially on the training edge. I used a tip from another builder and didn't bond the upper jigs to the floor. That allowed me to unbolt the upper section to allow the cores to more easily slide into place.

Next the leading foam core sections and wing jigs were removed to allow access to the shear web area.

Finally today I bonded the three aft foam cores together with micro. Next up is to fabricate the aluminum hard points that will correspond with the hard points installed in the center section spar.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 3

2010-03-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my brother and I finnished hotwire cutting the right wing cores. Again the whole process was very easy.

Unfortunatly I made a mistake while cutting the aileron cutouts in the outboard most setion. I mistakenly used the inboard aileron template instead of the midspan template. I mulled redoing the entire outboard section, but I decided to glue the scrap back in and recut the aileron with the proper template. The fix worked out fine. There should be some minor repairs to the foam after the aileron is removed.