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[June 10, 2017]


When I arrived to the hangar today I went to go clean out the oil sump with some paper towels. The cotter pin just had to be there! Well, I didn't have to look long. The oil sump was resting at an angle causing all of the oil to drain to one side. Staring me in the face in broad daylight was the missing cotter pin half (pictured on the right)! What a great feeling! Also, it did't look like it was damaged at all, which means it didn't go through the accessory case. It must of fallen straight down into the sump behind the gears. I'm one lucky SOB!


I slammed the oil sump back on. My friend Mike recommended coating the gasket with Permatex #2.


I noticed the adel clamp I had on my engine mount which held the fuel line after the engine driven fuel pump was loose. Oil had gotten between the adel clamp and the engine mount tube and caused it to slip down about an inch. In the picture you can see the marking on the engine mount tube just above the brown fuel hose where the adel clamp used to be. This caused the fuel line to get a little close to the exhaust. Maybe this is the root cause of why my engine runs really rough when I lean it out! More good news!


Parts started arriving today. My Safety Trim needed to be replaced.


So this little bastard took over 4 hours to removed. I mounted it under the seat pans, and of course installed it before I riveted down the seat pans. Turns out two of the screws were almost completely inaccessible. I was barely able to get to them with a Frankenstein-like contraption I made out of a number of other tools. The kicker was I could barely get my hands on the tool, and when I did get it in place, it was tough to find the head of the screw to turn. And once I was turning it, the screwdriver would fall off after 1/8th of a turn. It took forever to get these screws off, and it took all of my patience to not pry the thing out and break it into a million parts.

Anyways, I was smart putting the new one in. I put two nutplates on the side which was inaccessible. It took about 5 minutes to reinstall :)


No more auto alternators for me. I went with the best - 60 amp B&C alternator with external regulation.


I needed to make a mounting plate for the regulator which will mount under my map box.


With everything coming together and a new PMAG (When I sent in my EMAG, they upgraded it to a PMAG model) to install, I went to time the engine. Hmph. Yellow light on the PMAG. Called up EMAG and ended up needing to send it back. A little setback...


I added some silicon tape around the engine mount to prevent the adel clamp from slipping down again. I also wrapped the fuel line with another layer of firesleeve. Belt and suspenders engineering! My professors would be proud!


Finally some good news. The GRT Sport screens came back from GRT - both fixed and upgraded to the SX model with synthetic vision and vertical AP commands. Saaaawwweeeeeeaaaattt!!!!

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Last Modified: August 13, 2023